1029 science project ideas, from class 1 to college.

What it shows

The Earth spins on its axis once a day, so one half faces the Sun and has day while the other half has night. Places further east on the globe turn into the light first, which is why the sun rises earlier in Kolkata than in Mumbai.

You will need

• A ball or an old globe
• A knitting needle or a pencil pushed through as the axis
• A torch
• A small sticker to mark India
• A dark room
• A cardboard stand

Safety: An adult should push the needle through the ball.

Take it further: Keep the axis tilted, walk the globe round the torch and watch which pole stays lit to introduce seasons.

What it shows

A solar eclipse happens when the Moon passes between the Sun and the Earth and its shadow falls on the Earth. The dark inner shadow (umbra) covers only a small patch where the eclipse is total, and the lighter outer shadow (penumbra) covers a wide area that sees a partial eclipse.

You will need

• A large ball or globe for the Earth
• A small ball about a quarter the size for the Moon on a stick
• A bright torch or a lamp with a wide bulb for the Sun
• A dark room
• White paper to catch the shadow
• Labels

Safety: Never look at the real Sun during an eclipse without proper eclipse glasses; the model is safe to look at.

Take it further: Use a smaller Moon ball to show an annular eclipse, where a ring of Sun stays visible.

What it shows

A lunar eclipse happens at full moon when the Earth moves between the Sun and the Moon and the Moon passes through the Earth's shadow. The Moon does not go fully black because the Earth's atmosphere bends red sunlight into the shadow.

You will need

• A globe or a large ball for the Earth
• A small white ball on a stick for the Moon
• A torch for the Sun
• A clear glass of water with a drop of milk to act as the atmosphere
• A dark room
• A red cellophane sheet

Take it further: Look up the next lunar eclipse visible from India and plan to time the stages.

What it shows

Stars seem to form patterns called constellations. Cups with pinholes in the right pattern throw those patterns onto a dark wall, so a child learns to recognise Orion, the Great Bear, Cassiopeia and others before finding them in the real sky.

You will need

• Seven paper or plastic cups
• A pin and a thicker needle
• A torch that fits the cup mouth
• Printed star maps of seven constellations
• Tape
• A dark room with a plain wall

Safety: An adult should make the holes; pins are sharp. Never shine the torch into anyone's eyes.

Take it further: Make a cup for the Pole Star and the pointer stars of the Great Bear and use it to teach how to find north.

What it shows

A planisphere is a star map on a dial with a window shaped for one latitude. Turning the dial to the date and time shows exactly which stars are above the horizon, which demonstrates how the sky shifts through the night and through the year.

You will need

• A printed all-sky star chart with dates round the edge
• Stiff card
• A sheet of transparent plastic for the horizon window
• A paper fastener or split pin
• A compass and a protractor
• Glue and scissors

Take it further: Make a second mask for a southern Indian city and compare which stars each can see.

What it shows

The Moon's gravity pulls the oceans into a bulge on the side facing it and a second bulge on the opposite side. As the Earth turns under the two bulges, most coasts see two high tides and two low tides a day.

You will need

• A cardboard disc for the Earth, painted with a map
• A larger cardboard oval cut as the water layer
• A small ball for the Moon on a card arm
• A split pin at the Earth's centre
• A base board
• A marker and labels

Take it further: Look up a tide table for Mumbai or Kochi and check that high tides shift by about 50 minutes each day.

What it shows

The planets are not evenly spaced. On a scale where the Sun to Neptune is 100 sheets of toilet paper, the four rocky planets all fit inside the first 5 sheets and the gaps between the outer planets grow huge, something no picture in a textbook can show.

You will need

• A roll of toilet paper with at least 100 sheets
• A marker
• A long corridor or a playground
• A table of planet distances in astronomical units
• Small paper planet labels
• Tape

Take it further: Work out where the nearest star, about 270,000 AU away, would be on the same scale.

What it shows

The eight planets differ hugely in size. With the Earth as a peppercorn, Jupiter is a large orange and the Sun would be a ball taller than a child, so everyday objects show the true sizes far better than equal-sized clay balls.

You will need

• A peppercorn, a mustard seed, a pea, a coriander seed, a large orange, a small orange, two lemons
• A tray or a board
• Labels
• A measuring tape
• A chart of planet diameters

Take it further: Use the same scale to place the Moon, a tiny seed about 1 millimetre across, 12 centimetres from the peppercorn.

What it shows

A vertical stick's shadow is longest at sunrise, shrinks until the Sun is highest, then grows again. The shortest shadow points true north from anywhere in India, and the time it happens is local solar noon, which is usually not 12 o'clock by the clock.

You will need

• A straight stick about 30 centimetres long
• A flat open patch of ground or a large sheet of card
• Pebbles or chalk
• A clock
• A string and a ruler
• A compass to compare

Safety: Never look straight at the Sun. Drink water and wear a cap if staying outside long.

Take it further: Repeat the same day a month later and compare the length of the noon shadow to see the Sun's changing height.

What it shows

The same beam of light spread over a larger area heats each square less. Sunlight arrives at a slant in winter and spreads thin, which is the main reason winter is cold, not the small change in distance from the Sun.

You will need

• A torch with a narrow beam
• A sheet of graph paper or a hand-drawn centimetre grid
• A protractor
• A ruler
• A dark room
• Optional: a thermometer and a black card

Take it further: Measure the noon Sun angle in your town in June and December with a shadow stick and compare it with your torch results.

What it shows

The Earth has broad climate zones: the tropical zone between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, the temperate zones up to the polar circles, and the polar zones. The Tropic of Cancer runs through the middle of India, so the country spans tropical and sub-tropical climates with mountains that add cold zones.

You will need

• A thermocol or rubber ball about 20 centimetres across
• Paints: red, orange, green, white
• A thread and a marker for drawing latitude lines
• A stand
• Printed outline of India
• Labels

Safety: Paint in a ventilated room.

Take it further: Add a second set of labels for five world cities and compare their climates by zone.

What it shows

A river flowing over loose sediment erodes the outside of each bend, where water moves fastest, and deposits sand on the inside, where it is slow. Over time the bends grow into meanders and may be cut off to leave oxbow lakes, as happens on the Ganga plain.

You will need

• A large plastic tray or a cut-open jerrycan
• Fine sand, about 2 kilograms
• A plastic bottle with a small hole near the base as the water source
• A bucket to catch the outflow
• A few bricks to tilt the tray
• Coloured sprinkles or small confetti to trace the flow

Safety: Work outdoors or in a bathroom; wipe wet floors at once.

Take it further: Plant small sprigs of grass along one bank and show how vegetation slows bank erosion.

What it shows

When a river reaches the sea it slows down suddenly and drops the sediment it was carrying. The sediment builds a fan of land called a delta that splits the river into many channels, which is how the Ganga-Brahmaputra and Godavari deltas formed.

You will need

• A long tray, raised at one end
• Sand and a little soil to make it muddy
• A clear plastic box at the low end filled with water as the sea
• A jug of water
• A straw to make the channel
• A ruler

Take it further: Add a little salt to the "sea" and compare how quickly the mud settles; clay clumps faster in salt water.

What it shows

Groundwater is not an underground lake but water filling the spaces between grains of sand and gravel. A straw well draws it out, rain refills it from above, and anything spilled on the surface can reach the well, showing why wells go dry and why they get polluted.

You will need

• A large clear jar or a cut 5 litre bottle
• Gravel, coarse sand and a layer of clay or modelling clay
• A straw or a transparent pipe as the well
• A syringe without a needle to pump
• A jug of water and a watering can for rain
• A drop of food colour as the pollutant

Safety: An adult should cut the bottle.

Take it further: Add a second well on the clay side and show how a shallow and a deep aquifer behave differently.

What it shows

Land heats and cools much faster than water. In summer the hot Indian land has low pressure and air flows in from the cooler sea, carrying moisture; in winter the land is colder and the flow reverses. Measuring sand and water under the same sun shows the difference that drives the monsoon.

You will need

• Two identical containers
• Dry sand and water to the same depth
• Two thermometers
• A sunny spot and a shaded spot
• A notebook and a clock
• Optional: a lamp for a repeat indoors

Safety: Handle glass thermometers gently; a digital probe is safer.

Take it further: Repeat with wet sand and show how moist ground behaves more like water.

What it shows

Craters on the Moon were made by rocks hitting its surface. Dropping marbles into flour from different heights shows that faster impacts make wider craters with longer rays, and that the Moon keeps its craters because it has no air, water or weather to wear them away.

You will need

• A deep tray
• Flour about 3 centimetres deep
• A thin layer of cocoa powder or coloured powder on top
• Marbles or stones of different sizes
• A metre rule
• A small ruler to measure craters

Safety: Drop, do not throw; keep faces away from the tray.

Take it further: Drop the same marble at an angle and see whether the crater is still round; real craters usually are.

What it shows

Eratosthenes found the size of the Earth by comparing noon shadows at two places a known distance apart. You can repeat it with a friendly school in another city to find the Earth’s circumference.

You will need

• A straight vertical stick, 1 m, set up with a plumb line
• A level piece of ground or a board
• A tape measure and a pencil
• A partner school in a city due north or south, at least 300 km away
• A map or distance table between the two cities
• A watch showing correct local time
• Graph paper

Safety: Do not look at the Sun. Measure only the shadow. Work with an adult in an open, safe area.

Take it further: Use several partner schools at different distances and plot the angle difference against the distance to show a straight line.

What it shows

The height of the Pole Star above the horizon is nearly equal to your latitude in the northern hemisphere. A homemade angle measurer can show your place on Earth.

You will need

• A protractor with a hole at its centre
• A drinking straw taped along its straight edge
• A thread of 20 cm with a nut as a plumb weight
• A star chart or a free sky app to find the Pole Star
• A torch with a red cover for reading
• A notebook
• An atlas or phone map for the latitude of your town

Safety: An adult must come along for night work. Choose a safe open space away from roads and wear mosquito protection.

Take it further: Photograph the sky with a phone on a tripod for 30 seconds to catch short star trails turning round the Pole Star.

What it shows

If you mark the tip of a stick’s shadow at the same clock time each week, the marks form a long thin figure-eight called the analemma. It combines the Earth’s tilted axis with its elliptical orbit.

You will need

• A vertical stick or nail on a flat board, 20 cm tall
• A large sheet of white paper fixed under the stick
• A spirit level or plumb line
• A phone clock set to an accurate time
• A pencil and ruler
• A small compass to align north
• Tape

Safety: Do not look at the Sun. Keep the board where nobody trips on it and where it will not be moved.

Take it further: Use the lengths of the noon shadow on both solstices to calculate the Earth’s axial tilt from the two noon altitudes.

What it shows

The Sun’s image through a small hole is a circle whose size depends on the distance to the screen. Using similar triangles with the Sun’s distance gives its real diameter, about 1.4 million km.

You will need

• A thick card with a neat 1 mm to 2 mm hole made with a pin
• A second white card as a screen
• A tape measure of 2 m
• A transparent ruler marked in millimetres
• A stand or books to hold the cards
• A calculator
• A notebook

Safety: Never look at the Sun, even through the hole, binoculars or a telescope. Only look at the image on the white card, with your back to the Sun. An adult must supervise.

Take it further: Use the same angle to explain why total solar eclipses are possible, since the Moon is 400 times smaller but 400 times nearer than the Sun.

What it shows

The square of a planet’s orbital period is proportional to the cube of its average distance from the Sun. Plotting real data for the six naked-eye planets gives a straight line of slope 1 when the units are years and astronomical units.

You will need

• A table of planetary data from a textbook or a science website
• Graph paper, preferably log-log
• A calculator
• A ruler
• Coloured pens
• A spreadsheet if available
• A strip of paper to make a scale drawing

Safety: No special safety. Use only reliable data from a book or an observatory website and write the source.

Take it further: Use the Moon’s distance and period or the data of Jupiter’s four large moons to find the mass of the planet from the law.

What it shows

A nearby object appears to shift against a far background when you view it from two places. Measuring the shift and the baseline gives its distance, the same method astronomers use for nearby stars.

You will need

• A measuring tape of 5 m or more
• A long straight ruler or a marked stick
• A nearby object such as a tree, pole or post on open ground
• A distant background such as a building or hill
• Two flags or pencils for baseline ends
• A phone camera on a tripod or steady surface
• A calculator with tan inverse

Safety: Do the work in a safe open space away from traffic and ask an adult to supervise. Do not look at the Sun.

Take it further: Estimate the distance to a hill or a building at least 500 m away using a baseline of 20 m and compare with a map.

What it shows

The number of stars you can see falls when street lights and glare brighten the sky. Counting stars in a fixed patch of sky at different places gives a simple measure of light pollution.

You will need

• A cardboard tube such as a kitchen roll, painted black inside
• A star chart or an app showing the Pleiades and Orion’s belt
• A notebook and a red torch
• A watch
• A map of your area
• A friend and an adult
• A table for place, time, count and sky condition

Safety: An adult must go with you at night. Choose safe open places, keep away from roads and ditches, and use a red torch to protect your night vision.

Take it further: Repeat at the same place on a moonless and a full-moon night and find how much the Moon reduces the count.

What it shows

The Earth is made of layers: a thin crust, a thick mantle, a liquid outer core and a solid inner core. The cut-away shows their relative thickness.

You will need

• A thermocol ball 12 cm wide, or two ball halves
• Clay in four colours
• A kitchen knife or thin wire (adult only)
• Poster paint
• Glue and a toothpick for labels
• A ruler

Safety: An adult must cut the thermocol. Wear a mask when cutting, because the dust can irritate the nose.

Take it further: Scale the layers to a 12 cm ball and calculate each thickness in centimetres.