1029 science project ideas, from class 1 to college.

What it shows

A top stays upright while it spins fast, then wobbles and falls as friction slows it. Tops with a wide, heavy rim and a sharp point usually spin for longer.

You will need

• Old CDs, cardboard discs or bottle caps
• Short pencils or sharpened sticks, 4 pieces
• Glue or clay
• Coins to add weight
• A stopwatch or phone timer
• A smooth table or tray
• Pen and paper for a results table

Safety: An adult must sharpen the sticks. Spin tops on a table away from the edge so small parts do not fly into eyes.

Take it further: Compare how long a top spins when the stick is long or short and decide where its centre of mass should be.

What it shows

A soft cushion makes the egg stop more slowly, so the force on it is smaller. The same change in motion over a longer time means a smaller force.

You will need

• 6 hard boiled eggs, in zip bags
• Cotton, crumpled paper, sponge and shredded cloth
• Small cardboard boxes, 6 of equal size
• Tape
• A ladder or a first-floor balcony, with an adult
• A tray of soft soil or sand to land on
• A tape measure

Safety: An adult must do the drops from height and keep the area below clear. Use boiled eggs, and wash hands after touching raw or boiled egg shells.

Take it further: Add a paper parachute to the best box and see how much it raises the safe height.

What it shows

Heat travels along a solid by conduction. Metals pass heat quickly, while wood and plastic pass it slowly, so a bead stuck on a metal spoon with butter drops off first.

You will need

• A steel spoon, a wooden spoon and a plastic spoon of the same size
• A tall glass or steel tumbler
• Hot water from a flask, about 70 degrees C (adult only)
• Butter or a little candle wax
• Three small beads or lentils
• A stopwatch
• A cloth and a tray

Safety: An adult must pour the hot water and stay with the children. Do not touch the hot water or the metal after it warms.

Take it further: Try copper wire, an iron nail and an aluminium spoon and place them in order from the best to the worst conductor.

What it shows

It is much easier to roll a load on rollers than to slide it over the surface. A rubber band stretches less when the load rolls, showing that rolling friction is smaller than sliding friction.

You will need

• A thick rubber band, 15 cm
• A heavy book or a bag of rice, 1 kg
• Six round pencils or marker pens
• A table
• A ruler
• A strip of cloth to put under the book for a rough surface
• Marbles or a set of ball bearings, if available

Safety: Keep the rolling load away from the table edge so it does not fall on feet.

Take it further: Try rollers of different thickness and a glass bottle and see which gives the least stretch.

What it shows

Sound travels at a finite speed, about 340 metres every second in air. A clap that returns as an echo from a far wall lets you work out this speed with only a stopwatch and a tape.

You will need

• A tall wall or building at least 60 m away in an open field
• A measuring tape or 50 m rope, or a map for the distance
• A stopwatch or phone timer
• Two wooden blocks or pans to clap
• A friend to time
• A notebook
• A calculator

Safety: Do the test in a safe open ground away from roads and ask an adult to come along. Do not shout or clap near anyone’s ears.

Take it further: Repeat on a hot afternoon and a cool morning and plot the speed against the temperature.

What it shows

A ball stores energy when it is squashed and gives most of it back as it bounces. Different balls and surfaces return different fractions of the energy, so the bounce height changes.

You will need

• A rubber ball, a tennis ball, a ping pong ball and a cricket ball or a wooden ball
• A metre ruler fixed upright on a wall with tape
• A phone to take slow motion video
• Different floor surfaces: cement, carpet, wooden board, sand tray
• A notebook
• A calculator
• A friend

Safety: Do the drops away from windows and glass, and keep the ball low so that it does not hit anyone.

Take it further: Record the heights of three bounces in a row for the best ball and see whether the ratio stays the same.

What it shows

The program waits a random time, changes the colour, and measures how long you take to press a key. It shows how the timer block measures short intervals and how a list can store results.

You will need

• A computer, laptop or phone with a browser (free)
• Scratch 3 in the browser at scratch.mit.edu (free, no sign-in needed to code)
• A sprite with two costumes, red and green circles
• Five friends or family members to test
• A notebook and a pencil

Take it further: Compare reaction time before and after 20 minutes of a video game or before and after sleep, and record the results in a table.

What it shows

The program reads marks from a CSV file and finds the mean, median, highest, lowest and pass percentage. It shows how code can analyse data that a spreadsheet also holds.

You will need

• A computer, laptop or phone with a browser (free)
• Python 3 with IDLE, or the free Thonny editor, or an online Python runner (all free)
• A CSV file marks.csv made in Notepad or a spreadsheet with a header name,maths and about 20 made-up students
• A notebook and a pencil

Take it further: Add a second subject column and print the student with the best total, and draw a bar of stars for each mark range.

What it shows

The program stores 12 monthly rainfall values, finds the wettest month and the average, and draws a bar of hash signs for each month. It shows basic data analysis with lists.

You will need

• A computer, laptop or phone with a browser (free)
• Python 3 with IDLE, or the free Thonny editor, or an online Python runner (all free)
• Monthly rainfall in mm for your town from a newspaper, the weather department website or your school’s records
• A notebook and a pencil

Take it further: Read the values from a CSV file for several years and print which year had the highest total.

What it shows

The program reads a text file, cleans the words and counts them in a dictionary. It shows how text analysis works and which words dominate ordinary writing.

You will need

• A computer, laptop or phone with a browser (free)
• Python 3 with IDLE, or the free Thonny editor, or an online Python runner (all free)
• A text file story.txt containing a chapter or an essay you wrote or a free public-domain story, saved in Notepad
• A notebook and a pencil

Take it further: Skip a list of stop words such as the, a and of to reveal the topic words of the text.

What it shows

The program reads present and total days from a CSV, works out the percentage and writes a second file listing those below 75 percent. It shows reading, calculating and writing data in one pipeline.

You will need

• A computer, laptop or phone with a browser (free)
• Python 3 with IDLE, or the free Thonny editor, or an online Python runner (all free)
• A CSV file attendance.csv with columns name,present,total for 15 made-up students
• A notebook and a pencil

Take it further: Also compute how many more days each student must attend to reach 75 percent if the term has 200 days.

What it shows

A planned and an actual column are compared with formulas that give the difference and warn when spending exceeds the plan. It teaches the basics of budgeting and spreadsheet formulas.

You will need

• A computer, laptop or phone with a browser (free)
• A spreadsheet program: LibreOffice Calc (free) or Google Sheets (free)
• Rough figures for a made-up family for one month, or your own pocket money, in rupees
• A notebook and a pencil

Take it further: Add a column showing each item as a percentage of income with =C2/$B$12 formatted as percent.

What it shows

Survey answers are counted with COUNTIF and shown as a pie chart with percentages. It teaches data collection, counting and choosing the right chart.

You will need

• A computer, laptop or phone with a browser (free)
• A spreadsheet program: LibreOffice Calc (free) or Google Sheets (free)
• A class of 30 or more to ask, and a sheet of paper to tally on
• A notebook and a pencil

Take it further: Repeat the survey in another class and draw a side by side bar chart to compare.

What it shows

A running balance formula adds income and subtracts spending on every row, and a line chart shows how the balance changes over the month. It teaches saving habits and cell references.

You will need

• A computer, laptop or phone with a browser (free)
• A spreadsheet program: LibreOffice Calc (free) or Google Sheets (free)
• Your own record of pocket money received and spent for a month, in rupees
• A notebook and a pencil

Take it further: Add a savings goal cell and a formula that shows how many days it will take to reach it at the average saving rate.

What it shows

A single formula with MIN and MAX charges different rates for each block of units, as slab billing does. It shows how step-rate pricing works and how to check it.

You will need

• A computer, laptop or phone with a browser (free)
• A spreadsheet program: LibreOffice Calc (free) or Google Sheets (free)
• The slab rates from your own electricity bill or a state tariff sheet (the example uses made-up rates)
• Your family’s monthly units from a bill
• A notebook and a pencil

Take it further: Compare your bill before and after switching a bulb or fan to a more efficient one using real meter readings.

What it shows

Two formulas grow the same sum at the same rate, one adding the same interest each year and one adding interest on interest. The chart shows compounding pulling ahead with time.

You will need

• A computer, laptop or phone with a browser (free)
• A spreadsheet program: LibreOffice Calc (free) or Google Sheets (free)
• A made-up amount, for example Rs 10,000 at 8 percent a year (use rates from a bank notice board for real values)
• A notebook and a pencil

Take it further: Add a column for compounding every six months, using (1 + r/200)^(2n), and compare.

What it shows

Daily maximum temperatures are coloured from cool to hot with a colour scale and summarised with AVERAGE, MAX and MIN. It shows how colour helps people see patterns in numbers.

You will need

• A computer, laptop or phone with a browser (free)
• A spreadsheet program: LibreOffice Calc (free) or Google Sheets (free)
• Daily maximum temperatures for your town for 30 days from a newspaper, a weather website or an outdoor thermometer in the shade
• A notebook and a pencil

Take it further: Add a second month and compare the two heat maps and averages side by side.

What it shows

An anonymous survey of habits, such as sharing passwords or reusing one everywhere, gives percentages and a bar chart. It shows which habits put accounts at risk and how to improve them.

You will need

• A computer, laptop or phone with a browser (free)
• A spreadsheet program: LibreOffice Calc (free) or Google Sheets (free)
• A paper form with 6 yes or no questions, and 30 classmates who agree to answer
• Teacher’s permission to run the survey
• A notebook and a pencil

Safety: Never ask anyone for their actual password. Questions must be about habits only, answers must be anonymous, and a teacher must agree to the survey.

Take it further: Teach a class of younger children one password rule with a short skit and test whether they remember it a week later.

What it shows

A set of made-up messages, some genuine-looking and some fake, is sorted by friends using a checklist, and the results show which tricks work best. It teaches how to recognise phishing and scam messages.

You will need

• A computer, laptop or phone with a browser (free)
• A word processor or presentation program (free), such as LibreOffice or Google Docs
• 12 made-up messages you write yourself, 6 safe and 6 scams, with invented names and no real brands
• Ten volunteers
• A notebook and a pencil

Safety: Use only invented messages and never real company logos, phone numbers or links. Do not send fake messages to anyone, and a teacher must approve the test.

Take it further: Compare how well different age groups do and show the result in a chart.

What it shows

Daily screen time for study, play and chat is logged for a week, averaged and charted, then a plan is made and tested. It teaches self-observation and healthy habits with data.

You will need

• A computer, laptop or phone with a browser (free)
• A spreadsheet program: LibreOffice Calc (free) or Google Sheets (free)
• A phone that shows screen time, or a simple paper log with a clock
• A parent or teacher to talk to about the plan
• A notebook and a pencil

Safety: This is a personal diary; share only what you are comfortable with. Take breaks from the screen every 30 minutes and look at distant things to rest your eyes.

Take it further: Add a column for hours of sleep and see whether late screen use matches shorter sleep.