experiments in biology

Top 30 Biology Experiments for High-School

The field of biology offers a wide range of fascinating experiments that can deepen our understanding of the living world around us. From studying the behavior of cells to investigating the intricacies of ecosystems, biologists use a variety of methods to uncover the secrets of life.

We’ve compiled a captivating list of 30 biology experiments that are both educational and fun and also suitable for a wide range of ages.

These hands-on educational activities will not only deepen your appreciation for the intricacies of life but also fuel your curiosity and passion for scientific exploration.

So, roll up your sleeves, gather your lab equipment, and prepare to embark on an exciting adventure through the fascinating world of biology-based science experiments!

1. Grow a Butterfly

Students can gain knowledge about the various phases of development, from the egg to the larva to the pupa to the adult butterfly, by studying and taking care of a butterfly during its whole life cycle. This offers students a special chance to learn about the insect life cycle and the metamorphosis process.

Learn more: Elemental Science

2. Dissecting a Flower

Dissecting a flower can aid students in honing their analytical and observational skills. This may also aid in their comprehension of how a flower’s various components interact to facilitate reproduction, which is the flower’s main objective.

Learn More: How to Dissect a Flower

3. Extracting a DNA

The extraction of DNA is an excellent experiment for high school students to gain a better understanding of the principles of molecular biology and genetics. This experiment  helps students to understand the importance of DNA in research and its applications in various fields, such as medicine, biotechnology, and forensics.

Learn more: Extracting DNA

4. Looking at Fingerprints

Exploring fingerprints can be a fun and intriguing experiment. This experiment encourages students to develop their problem-solving skills and attention to detail, as they must carefully analyze and compare the various fingerprint patterns.

Fingerprint analysis is a fascinating and engaging experiment that can spark an interest in forensic science and provide students with a hands-on learning experience.

Learn more: Directions to Examine a Fingerprint

5. Cultivate Bacteria on Home Made Agar

This experiment provides a hands-on learning experience for students to understand the principles of microbiology and the techniques used in bacterial culture.

This experiment can also help students to understand the importance of bacteria in our daily lives, their role in human health, and their applications in various fields, such as biotechnology and environmental science.  

Learn more: Grow bacteria on Homemade Agar Plates

6. Make a Bioluminescent Lamp

This experiment provides an excellent opportunity for high school students to learn about bioluminescence and the principles of genetic engineering.

Creating a bioluminescent lamp is a fun and engaging way to explore the intersection of biology, chemistry, and physics, making it a perfect experiment for students interested in science and technology.

Learn more: Make Glowing Water

7. Make Plants Move with Light

This experiment can help students understand the role of light in plant growth and photosynthesis and the importance of light as an environmental factor for plant survival. 

Learn more: Experiments with Phototropism

8. Test the Five-Second Rule

The “5-second rule” experiment is a simple and fun way to investigate the validity of the popular belief that it is safe to eat food that has been dropped on the ground for less than 5 seconds.

The experiment is an engaging and informative way to explore the science behind a common belief and promote critical thinking and scientific inquiry among students.

Learn more: Five Second Rule

9. Examine How Antibiotics Affect Bacteria

This experiment is an excellent opportunity for high school students to develop their laboratory skills, such as aseptic technique and bacterial culture, and understand the principles of antibiotic resistance and its implications for human health.

Examining how antibiotics affect bacteria is a fascinating and educational experiment that promotes scientific inquiry and critical thinking among students.

Learn more: Learn About Bacteria

10. Look for Cell Mitosis in an Onion

This experiment is an excellent opportunity for high school students to develop their microscopy skills and understand the biological basis of growth and development in plants. This experiment is a fun and informative way to explore the world of cells and their role in the growth and development of living organisms.

Learn more: Onion Root Mitosis

11. Test the Effects of Disinfectants

Testing the effects of disinfectants is an important process in determining their efficacy in killing or reducing the number of microorganisms on a surface or object. Disinfectants can be hazardous if not used correctly, and testing their effects can help students understand how to use them safely.

Students can learn about proper handling techniques and how to interpret safety labels and warning signs.

Learn more: Antiseptic and Disinfectants

12. Microwave Seed Gardening

Microwave seed gardening is a quick and efficient method of germinating seeds, microwave seed gardening can be a useful method for starting seeds, but it should be used with care and in conjunction with other germination methods to ensure the best possible results. 

Learn more: Microwave plant

13. Water Bottle Bacteria Swab

This experiment can be a fun and informative way to learn about the importance of keeping water bottles clean and free from harmful bacteria. It can also be used to compare the cleanliness of different types of water bottles, such as metal, plastic, or glass.

Learn more: Swabbing Water Bottles

14. Frog Dissection

Frog dissection can be a valuable tool for teaching anatomy and physiology to high school students, as it provides a comprehensive examination of the internal organs and systems of the frog.

Dissection can be a valuable and engaging experiment for high school students interested in biology and life science.

Learn more: Frog Dissection

15. Witness the Carbon Cycle in Action

By witnessing the carbon cycle in action, learners can gain a better understanding of the interconnectedness of different parts of the Earth’s system and the impact that human activities can have on these processes.

Learn more: Carbon Cycle Lab

16. Investigate the Efficacy of Types of Fertilizer

Investigating the efficacy of different types of fertilizer can be an interesting and informative way to learn about plant growth and nutrition. Investigating the efficacy of different types of fertilizer is a practical and engaging way to learn about plant nutrition and the role of fertilizers in agriculture.

Learn more: Best Fertilizer

17. Explore the Impact of Genetic Modification on Seeds

Exploring the impact of genetic modification on seeds is a fascinating and relevant topic that can spark meaningful discussions and encourage learners to think critically about the role of science and technology in society.

Learn more: Genetically Modified (GM) Crops

18. Yeast Experiment

Another easy to perform experiment for high school students is the yeast. This experiment is simple since all that is required is the removal of four different food samples onto separate plates and a thorough examination of the mold that develops on each sample over time.

Learn more: Grow Yeast Experiment

19. Taste Perception 

The human tongue has specialized taste receptors that respond to five primary tastes: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami (savory). Taste perception plays an important role in determining food preferences and dietary habits, as well as influencing the overall eating experience.

Learn more: Taste perception

20. Pea Plant Genetics

A classic pea plant genetics experiment involves cross breeding pea plants with different traits, such as flower color, seed shape, or pod shape.

This experiment can be conducted in a controlled environment, such as a greenhouse, by manually transferring pollen from one plant to another.

Learn more: Gregor Mendel Pea Experiment

21. Comparing Animal and Plant Cells

Comparing animal and plant cells is an important exercise in biology education. Both animal and plant cells are eukaryotic cells, meaning they contain a nucleus and other membrane-bound organelles.

This exercise can help students understand the structure and function of cells, as well as appreciate the diversity of life on Earth.

Learn more: Comparing Plant Cell and Animal Cell

22.  Testing Bacteria 

Bacteria are easily accessible and can be grown in a laboratory or even at home with simple equipment and materials. This makes it a practical and cost-effective experiment for schools with limited resources.

Learn more: How to grow Bacteria and more

23. The Effect of Light on Growth

Light is a fundamental environmental factor that plays a crucial role in the growth and development of plants. By conducting this experiment, students can gain a deeper understanding of how light affects plant growth and why it is important.

Learn more: The effect of light in Plant Growth

24. Planaria Regeneration

Planaria regeneration allows students to design their own experiments, as they can choose which body parts to remove and study the effects of different variables, such as temperature, pH, or chemical treatments on the regeneration process.

Planaria are easy to obtain and maintain in a laboratory or classroom setting. They are also affordable, making it an ideal experiment for schools with limited resources.

Learn more: Planaria Experiment

25. Making a Seed Board

Making a seed board can be a fun and engaging activity for students, as they can see the progress of their plants over time and share their results with others. It can also foster a sense of responsibility and ownership in caring for their plants.

26. Design an Owl Pellet

Dissecting an owl pellet provides a hands-on learning experience for students, allowing them to practice skills in scientific observation, data collection, and analysis. Students can also learn about the anatomy of the prey species found in the owl pellet.

27. Grow an Herbal Cutting

Growing an herb cutting provides a hands-on learning experience for students, allowing them to practice skills in plant care, experimental design, and data collection. Students can learn about the different stages of plant growth and the factors that affect it.

28. Eat a Cell Model

Creating an edible cell model connects to various disciplines, such as biology, anatomy, and nutrition. Students can learn about the different organelles that make up a cell and their functions, as well as the nutritional value of the food materials used in the model

29. Make a Habitat Diorama

Making a habitat diorama provides a hands-on learning experience for students, allowing them to practice skills in research, creative design, and presentation. Students can learn about different ecosystems and the organisms that inhabit them.

30. Create a Fall Leaf (or Signs of Spring) Journal

Creating a fall leaf (or signs of spring) journal provides a hands-on learning experience for students, allowing them to practice skills in observation, data collection, and analysis. Students can learn about the changes that occur in nature during the fall or spring season.

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• 68 Best Chemistry Experiments: Learn About Chemical Reactions
• Top 100 Fine Motor Skills Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers
• Top 58 Creative Art Activities for Kids and Preschoolers

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20 Fun and Interesting Biology Experiments for High School 

Jennifer is a prolific writer with over 10 years of experience in online writing. She enjoys creating quotes and poems.

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Unlike science in middle school, high school biology is a hands-on endeavor. Experiments are a standard part of biology courses, whether they are part of a controlled laboratory class, science fair, or individual student projects. Explore a few fascinating high school biology experiments; and discover ideas for simple and easy biology experiments to incorporate into your curriculum.

Examples of Biology Experiments for High School

Whether you are looking for a science fair project or need to create a project for a class assignment, there are numerous biology projects for teens.

• Planting Spring Bulbs: An Easy-to-Follow Guide for Beginners
• 7 Senior Bio Examples to Help You Craft Your Own

Frog Dissection

Dissecting a frog is a quintessential part of high school biology. If possible, try to get both female and male specimens for your class so students can see the eggs and compare the insides to the male frog.

Flower Dissection

High schoolers can get a bit squirmy about frog dissection. Have a flower dissection instead. The teens can find and label the female and male parts of the flower. It can be fun for high schoolers to check out flower intricacies under a microscope.

Diversity Among Plant Samples

Another simple biology experiment involves going into your natural environment, such as a local park, to observe diversity among plant samples. To make the experiment more detailed, students can rub collected samples on filter paper to observe which plants present which colors . Teens can work to find out why certain plants present certain colors.

Phototropism

It can be enlightening to show kids how phototropism affects plants. They can set up an experiment by using different materials to affect light. They can see how affecting the light affects the growth of the plant.

Water From Common Sources

Water is everywhere. Unfortunately, water contains numerous elements too. A great experiment is collecting water samples from various sources and viewing them under a microscope. Students can then compare their results and attempt to postulate why a given water source would present more organisms than another would.

Yeast Experiment

Another experiment involves taking a piece of bread to monitor the molds that grow over a period of two weeks.

Taste Perception

Everyone has their own taste. Literally! Some people like sour things while others like sweet. Find out if everyone perceives taste the same way and has the same threshold for taste by doing an in-class experiment.

Disinfectant Effectiveness

Ever wonder how effective hand sanitizer is at killing bacteria? Test it! Grow bacteria in a Petri dish along with paper soaked in peroxide, white vinegar, rubbing alcohol, etc. Find out how each one of them works to inhibit bacteria growth.

Pea Plant Genetics

Students can recreate Mendel's genetic pea plant experiments . By growing pea plants and comparing their phenotypes, students can determine each parent plant's genotype.

Examining Fingerprints

Fingerprints are pretty amazing features on the human body. Not only can you use them to open your phone, but each one is unique . Put your fingerprint on paper and examine the different aspects of the lines and arches on your fingers. Compare fingerprints among everyone in class.

Comparing Animal and Plant Cells

To better understand animal and plant cells, students can compare cells from their cheeks to cells from an onion. Just stain the cells with iodine or another dye to better see the cell structures under a microscope.

Creating a DNA model is a great way to help students understand the structure and function of DNA in genetics. Students can use candy, string, and toothpicks to develop a fairly realistic model of the double helix structure.

Water Bottle Germs

Many people refill their water bottles in high school. But do they add germs or bacteria to the bottle? Is refilling a disposable water bottle safe? Have students take swabs of the water bottles they use and look for bacteria around the lid or on the bottle.

Testing Hair

Teens use a lot of hair products. But do they truly work? Have teens in your class take a few samples of their hair. See what happens to the hair when common hair products are added.

Water Cycle

Understanding the water cycle isn't hard. But teens can look at it firsthand by creating a water cycle experiment. Just have them fill a baggie with water and tape it to a window. They will watch evaporation, condensation, and precipitation in action.

Closed Ecosystem Bottle

It can be hard for students to imagine something having its own ecosystem. However, you can use a plastic bottle to create a closed ecosystem.

Field Survey Biology Experiment

This experiment is great because it is cheap, easy, and you can do it in a variety of areas around your school or send students home with it. The goal is to observe the surrounding area over time and monitor the samples that you collect.

Materials You'll Need

For this experiment, you need to grab:

• Jar or baggies to collect samples
• Stakes and string or cones help mark an area
• Paper or journals for taking notes
• Slides, slide covers, and a microscope

Observation Instructions

Take note that you will observe your area for several months, so choose an area that is easy to re-mark or where you can leave the markings up, so you return to the same designated area each time.

• Have students choose one spot to observe. The spot should be no more than two to three feet square.
• Do you see evidence of animals? (Look for prints, scat or guano, fur, owl pellets, etc.)
• What plant life do you see? (Look for moss, lichen, weeds, and other plants).
• What fungus do you see? (Look for mushrooms and other fungal growth).
• What insects do you see? (Encourage students to look specifically for relationships here - such as connecting mosquitos with water or bees with flowers or a hive).

Sampling and Classroom Instructions

Bring the research back into the classroom by following these instructions.

• Guide students to make connections and note relationships in their marked area. Have them inventory the area and draw a crude map of where everything is.
• If possible, have students use tweezers and gently take samples of soil, fungus, moss, plant life, insects, etc.
• pH value of soil or water
• Microorganisms in water
• Plant cells under a microscope
• Comparative structure of flowers you find
• Require students to record everything in their own journal or interactive notebook.

Teacher tip: Set up stations in the classroom for viewing, dissecting, drawing, testing pH, etc. This will allow students some choice in how they proceed with examining their specimens.

Testing for Bacteria

Have students see where the most bacteria are lurking. This experiment is great if you want a lab that has guaranteed results. There is always some kind of bacteria lurking somewhere, just waiting to grow in a student's Petri dish.

These are the materials you are going to need to have on hand.

• Prepared Petri dishes, three per student
• Sterile swabs
• Painter's tape
• Scotch tape
• Permanent Marker
• Graph paper

Material notes : You can also purchase sterile Petri dishes and agar separately; however, it is much more likely students will contaminate the plate before they swab.

Preparing Your Petri Dishes

Prepping your Petri dishes is an essential part of the experiment.

• Before opening any materials, have students identify three places (but in one physical location such as at home or at school) that they are going to swab for bacteria. Encourage them to hypothesize about which place they think will grow the most bacteria.
• Using the Petri dish, trace three circles on the graph paper and cut it out.
• In pencil, draw a line to denote the 'top' of the circle. It doesn't matter where you draw the line, but you will need something to show you how your Petri dish is oriented so you can be sure you're tracking the same colony each time you observe.
• On the back of the graph paper circle, note the location where you will take the swab, as well as the date you are taking the swabs. Do this for all three Petri dishes you have.

Collecting Samples

Have students bring their unopened sterile swabs and closed Petri dishes to the site. Carefully, they should:

• Set the Petri dish down on a flat surface.
• Unwrap the swab.
• Swipe the swab across the area they suspect has bacteria.
• Lift the lid, gently wipe the used swab across the agar, and close the lid, carefully but quickly.

Hint: Sometimes, it's helpful to tape the Petri dish shut so that the Petri dish doesn't accidentally lose its lid.

Evaluating Results

Now that you've swabbed the areas, it's all about the results.

• Have students draw Petri-dish-sized circles in their lab books or on separate graph paper. Draw one week's worth of Petri dishes for each dish the student has.
• As the colonies start to grow, have students draw the size in their notebooks, making daily observations. If they cannot observe daily, have them observe on the same day(s) over a month.
• They should also be recording the color and other notable features of their bacteria colonies in their lab books.
• At the end, the students should write a conclusion of their study.

The Effect of Light on Growth

In this lab, students investigate how light affects plant growth. Students may use any plants, but cress will grow more quickly, so your students can get results faster.

Gather up your materials.

• Styrofoam cup or bowl
• Potting soil

Instructions

With your materials at the ready, it's time to start your experiment.

• On Day 1 - plant seeds in the soil in the cups.
• Label the cups according to the light you're going to use. You can compare sunlight vs. complete darkness, or you can compare several types of light.
• On each day after the initial day, take a picture of each cup and try to measure the growth, if any.
• For your lab entries, measure the sprouts, and note color and shape characteristics.

Planaria Regeneration

In this lab, students watch the rate at which planaria regenerates and test whether how you cut the planaria makes a difference as to how they grow back.

To conduct this experiment, you want to grab.

• 9 planarias
• 3 small plastic Petri dishes
• 1 large plastic Petri dish
• 1 plastic pipet
• 1 magnifying glass
• 1 plastic coverslip
• Spring water
• Paper towels
• Ice pack(optional)

Setup Instructions

Getting the setup right is half the battle when it comes to creating fun and interesting biology experiments for high schoolers.

• Start by numbering the three small Petri dishes to ensure nothing gets confused later.
• Using the pipet, move a planarian into the large Petri dish.
• At this point, you may want to try to set the Petri dish on an ice pack for a few minutes. This isn't totally necessary, but it will slow the planarian down to make it easier to cut.
• Right behind the head
• Right in the middle
• Right towards the tail
• Use the pipet to gently transfer each segment to a new Petri dish (with spring water).
• Repeat the steps with all remaining worm segments.
• Every day, observe the planaria. Regeneration will be considered 'complete' when the photoreceptors (the black dots that look like eyes on the planarian's head) appear.

Scientific Method and High School Biology Experiments

Much of high school biology is focused on instilling the elements of science in students. The scientific method is one of these main focuses. The method prompts participants in science to be investigators and to come up with a guess about what will happen in a given experiment, called a hypothesis. The point of the experiment is then to either prove the hypothesis correct through the experiment or prove it incorrect. This prompts teens to get involved in the scientific method while teaching other scientific skills, such as:

• The ability to make a rational estimate based on present factors and knowledge
• Close detail and monitoring skills
• The possibility of being wrong and how to move past that if it turns out to be the case
• Quick thinking skills

As much fun as biology experiments can be, there is an educational component spearheading the experiment.

Fun and Interesting High School Biology Experiments

For teens, high school biology can be fun. Finding the right experiment can help biology pop off the page and become more than just another required course of study. Who knows? Perhaps your student will even be prompted to enter a science fair or a career rooted in science?

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Top 10 Biology Experiments You Don't Want to Miss

January 14, 2019 4 min read biology experiments science activities

A few years back we shared a series about how to teach the different areas of science at home, which you can find here:

• Teaching Biology at Home
• Teaching Earth Science at Home
• Teaching Astronomy at Home
• Teaching Chemistry at Home
• Teaching Physics at Home

The posts in the series have remained some of our most popular posts and so we thought we would help you all out by sharing our favorite experiments for each discipline!

We are going to start this series out with biology - here's how you can teach biology at home .

And without further ado, here are our top 10 biology experiments!

Top 10 Biology Experiments

1. Dissect a Flower  

Many of the typical spring blooms, such as lilies, tulips, and daffodils, have clearly seen elements, which makes them excellent specimens for your students to study the structure of a flower.

One of the best ways to do this is through a flower dissection! These step-by-step directions for a flower dissection will help you examine the structure of a flower.

2. Raise a Butterfly

Butterflies go through an amazing life-cycle. A butterfly lays an egg, from which a caterpillar emerges. Then, the caterpillar eats and grows, eventually forming a chrysalis. And several weeks later a butterfly emerges!

There is nothing like watching this process in action! And these instructions on how to grow a butterfly will help you observe this life cycle in action.

3. Extract DNA 

DNA is the stuff that tells our cells what to do and how to look. It resides in the nucleus of a cell, so as you can imagine it is quite tiny. In fact, you normally need a very powerful microscope to see DNA for yourself.

That is unless you extract it and force it to join up together into one giant mass of DNA. And that is exactly what you do with this Banana DNA Extraction experiment .

4. Make a Seed Board 

Plants start their lives out as seeds and there is a huge variety of seeds, just like there is a huge variety of plants.  

These four steps for making a seed board will help your students appreciate the differences and similarities between seeds.

5. Dissect an Owl Pellet 

This one often grosses people out, but dissecting an owl pellet is a great way to learn about bones and animal diet.

Don't worry, owl pellets are not from the backside of an owl. Owls swallow their prey whole, so a few hours after the meal, they will regurgitate the indigestible parts in the form of a pellet.

These four steps for dissecting an owl pellet will help you get the most of this fascinating but slightly suspect dissection.

6. Look at Fingerprints

Our body is covered with an amazing organ know as skin. It's the largest organ of the integumentary system. The  skin on our fingers, toes, palms of your hands, and soles of your feet is folded into tiny ridges. These ridges form swirling patterns, that help our hands and feet grip things.

These directions for examining your fingerprints will help your students understand just how amazing our skin is!

7. Grow an Herb Cutting

Roots are the structure of a plant that anchors into the ground and helps the provide the plant with the nutrients it needs to grow.

These directions for growing an herb cutting will help your students see how roots grow and get a chance to examine roots up close without getting dirty! 

8. Make a Habitat Diorama 

Our planet is covered with different types of habitats. Habitats are the place that is normal for the life and growth of a certain animal or a plant. In other words, it's the area where an animal or plant resides.

These directions for how to make a habitat diorama will help your students learn about the different plants and animals in an area in a hands-on way.

9. Eat a Cell Model

The cell is the basic unit of life, but it's so small that we can't see the cell's structure with our naked eyes. Enter the cell model.

You can make a jello cell, a cake cell, or a cell calzone to eat, but whatever cell you choose to snack on, these edible models will help your students visualize this basic building block of life.

10. Create a Fall Leaf  (or Signs of Spring)  Journal

When you study biology, it's a good idea to learn about the nature surrounding you. A  Fall Leaf journal  or a Signs of Spring journal will help your students learn about the trees and bushes that are in your area.

Wrapping it Up

There are loads more options for biology experiments out there that we love - in fact, we probably could have done a post with 100 experiments! But these are the ten we don't want you to miss.  If you want more biology experiments, check out our Biology Pinterest board .

If you want it all pulled together for you, check out the following our homeschool science programs with easy-to-use plans for teaching biology:

• For Preschool – Intro to Science  and  Summer's Lab
• For Elementary Students –  Biology for the Grammar Stage ,   Biology Lapbooks , The Sassafras Science Adventures ( Zoology ,   Anatomy , and   Botany )
• For Middle School Students –   Biology for the Logic Stage
• High School Students –   Biology for High School

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10 Easy DIY Biology Experiments You Can Do at Home

Table of Contents

Biology is interesting, but everyone gets access to modern-day state-of-the-art equipment for doing biology experiments. But it is possible to do some easy DIY experiments at home using the right kind of materials.

This list of DIY experiments does not include experiments related to genetic engineering as in many countries permission is not there to carry out experiments in uncertified places.

Benefits of DIY Biology Experiments for High School Students

For high school students, doing biology experiments at home is beneficial for both academic and personal growth.

Students develop the required laboratory skills and strengthen their knowledge of the science, right from the formation of a hypothesis to the analysis of data.

10 Easy DIY Biology Experiments That You Can Do at Home

Extraction of own dna.

It is possible to extract your DNA at home by making use of the daily kitchen supplies. It can be extracted from Saliva or you can make use of fruits like bananas, strawberries, etc.

The saliva consists of cells in your mouth that contain DNA. The detergent helps in breaking down the membranes which gives protection to the DNA and releases it into the recipient. The salt denatures the DNA and thus it precipitates out and the grapefruit juice helps in the neutralization of the proteins that can damage DNA.

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6 Easy Biology Science Experiments for Kids

Let’s dive into studying life and living organisms with a new set of biology experiments for kids! These are all easy and simple to do at home or in your classroom, and all of them are liquid or water-based, so you’ll likely have everything you need on hand to bring these science projects to life. We’ll be exploring osmosis, chromatography, homogenization, transpiration, capillary action, and evaporation.

Related: Check out our other science experiments for kids posts on physics and chemistry !

Gummy Bear Osmosis

“Solute” is a general term that refers to a molecule dissolved in a solution. In a salt water solution, for example, the salt molecules are the solutes. The more salt we put in the solution, the more we increase the concentration of solutes.

Water moves from an area with a lower concentration of solutes to an area with a higher solute concentration. This movement of water molecules is called “osmosis.” In order to examine the process of osmosis and observe how it works, we can look at what happens to gummy bears when they are left to soak in different solutions overnight.

Gummy Bear Osmosis Printable Instructions

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-------------------------------------------------------, what you’ll need:.

• Two container such as bowls, cups, or jars
• Measuring cup
• Gummy bears
• Add ½ cup of water to each of the two empty containers. Add 1 teaspoon of salt to one of the containers and stir well.
• Drop a gummy bear into each container and leave it 8 hours or overnight.
• Observe what happened to each gummy bear. Compare the gummy bears to each other, and also to a gummy bear that was not left to soak overnight.

What’s happening?

The concentration of solutes inside the gummy bear is higher than the concentration of solutes in plain water. As a result, in our experiment, the water flowed into the gummy bear causing it to swell, and that’s why the gummy bear grew overnight.

The same is true for the gummy bear placed in the salt water solution. However, the difference in solute concentration wasn’t as great, so less water flowed into the gummy bear. In other words, it took less water to balance out the solute concentration inside and outside the gummy bear. Thus, the gummy bear in the salt water solution grew less than the bear in the plain water solution.

You can experiment with different solute concentrations to see how it affects the outcome. What happens when you add twice as much salt to the overnight water bath? Is there any amount of salt that can be added to keep the gummy bear the same size?

Exploring Chromatography

Chromatography is a technique used to separate out the components of a mixture. The technique utilizes two phases – a mobile phase and a stationary phase. There are several types of chromatography, but in this experiment, we will be looking at paper chromatography.

In paper chromatography, the stationary phase is filter paper. The mobile phase is the liquid solvent that moves over the filter paper. For this experiment, we will use marker ink to examine how chromatography works.

Exploring Chromatography Printable Instructions

• Three clear containers such as drinking glasses or mason jars
• Coffee filters
• Rubbing alcohol
• Vegetable oil
• Water-soluble marker, any color
• Sharpie marker, any color
• Mark one container with an “A,” a second container with a “W,” and a third container with an “O.” Fill the bottom of the “A” container with rubbing alcohol, the “W” container with water, and the “O” container with vegetable oil. Make sure the liquid in each container comes up no more than ½ an inch from the bottom.
• Take three coffee filters out and measure out 1 inch from the bottom. Mark this spot by drawing a line with the pencil. Make one dot on this line using the water-soluble marker. Do the same with the Sharpie marker.
• Place one coffee filter in each container so that the bottom of the coffee filter is submerged in the solvent but the solvent DOES NOT touch the dots of marker ink. The solvent will travel up the coffee filter and past the dots. Watch what happens to the dots as the solvent moves over them.

Like dissolves like, so substances will interact with solvents that are similar to it. Water-soluble marker ink is polar, so it will interact with polar mobile phases such as water and alcohol. When a non-polar solvent such as vegetable oil moves over it, it will not interact, and therefore will not move.

Sharpie marker ink is “permanent” in the sense that it can’t be washed off with water. It isn’t water-soluble. When the rubbing alcohol moves over it, however, we see that the Sharpie ink interacts with it. This is because Sharpie ink contains alcohols in it. Following the principle of “like dissolves like,” it interacts with the rubbing alcohol.

Using Tie-Dyed Milk to Observe Homogenization

Molecules in a solution tend to aggregate with other molecules that are similarly charged. Fat molecules, for instance, will cluster together with other fat molecules. Milk is made up of different types of molecules, including fat, water, and protein. In order to keep these molecules from completely separating to form layers, milk undergoes a process called homogenization.

Even after undergoing homogenization, however, fat molecules floating free in solution will come together when milk is left sitting undisturbed. To visualize this process, and what happens when those molecules are dispersed, we can use food coloring and dish soap.

Using Tie-Dyed Milk to Observe Homogenization Printable Instructions

• Full fat milk
• 1 small bowl
• Cotton swabs
• Pour some milk into a small bowl. You don’t need a lot of milk for this, just enough to fill the bottom of your bowl. Allow the milk to settle so the surface of the milk is still before moving on to Step 2.
• Add a drop of food coloring to the surface of the milk.
• Dip a cotton swab in dish soap and touch the swab to the surface of the milk, directly adjacent to the drop of food coloring. What happens to the food coloring?

Have you ever tried to mix oil and water? The fat molecules in oil, just like the ones in milk, are “hydrophobic,” meaning they don’t like to be near charged molecules such as water, and will do whatever they can to keep away from them. To achieve this, they clump together. Because the fat molecules are less dense than water, the fat globules float up and form a layer above the water. In our experiment, we added food coloring to this layer of fat globules.

Dish soap is a detergent. Detergent molecules have a hydrophobic end and a hydrophilic end. Because of this, they are able to form a bridge between the fat molecules and the water molecules, causing the fat globules to break up and disperse. What we’re seeing when we add the dish soap is this dispersal of the fat clusters, carrying the food coloring with it and resulting in a beautiful tie-dyed pattern. The result is more dramatic if you add several drops of food coloring and include a variety of colors.

Making water travel through capillary action

Paper towels are designed to pick up spills quickly, absorbing lots of liquid with only a few sheets. But what is it about paper towels that makes them so absorbent? The answer is, in part, capillary action.

In this experiment, we’ll observe how capillary action works to make paper towels efficient. Using nothing but paper towels and the principles governing capillary action, we’ll make water travel from one container and into another.

Making Water Travel through Capillary Action Printable Instructions

• 3 containers (cups or jars)
• Paper towels
• Food coloring
• Line up the three containers. Fill the two containers on either end about ¾ full of water. Add several drops of food coloring to each of the jars. Whatever color you use is up to you, but the effect works best if the two colors combine to make a third color. (For instance – yellow and blue make green.)
• Fold a paper towel in 4 lengthwise. Place one end of the folded paper towel in one of the containers filled with colored water (make sure the end is immersed in the water) and let the other end hang into the empty container. Repeat using a second paper towel and the remaining filled container.
• Let the containers sit for four hours. Check them after 1 hour, 2 hours, and 4 hours. What do you see?

Paper towels are highly porous. These pores function like tiny tubes, or capillaries, to draw up water. Two properties allow this to happen. The first is adhesion. Water molecules are attracted to the walls of the capillaries and “stick” to them. This is enhanced in our experiment because paper towels are made of cellulose molecules that are highly attractive to water. The second property is cohesion. The water molecules like to stick to each other. Together, these two properties allow the water to “travel” along the paper towel against gravity, moving out of one container and dropping into the other.

Efficient paper towels are more porous than less efficient brands, giving them a higher degree of absorbency. Taking this into account, how do you think the progress observed at each time point would differ if you used low quality paper towels instead of highly absorbent ones? How would you expect the color in the middle jar to change if you use a less absorbent paper towel to make the blue water travel, and a more absorbent paper towel to make the yellow water travel?

Observing Xylem in Celery

All plants need water to survive. In order to move water up from the soil and into their shoots and leaves, plants have developed a system of water transport. This system is called “xylem.” We can observe the movement of water through xylem transport by placing stalks of celery in colored water. The colored water moves through the stalk and up into the leaves, making the path of the water through this system visible.

Observing Xylem in Celery Printable Instructions

• A container such as a jar or vase
• Add 1 cup of water to the empty container. Add 2 drops of food coloring to the water (or however many it takes to achieve the color desired) and stir well to mix.
• Choose a celery stalk that has leaves attached to the top. Cut about 1 inch off the bottom of the stalk.
• Place the stalk upright in the container, making sure the bottom of the stalk is immersed in the water.
• Leave the celery out over night. Observe what happens. Take the celery out of the water and cut it open to get a better look at the path the water took.

Plants use a system called xylem to pull water up from the ground and transport it up through the shoot into their leaves. This process is passive, meaning it doesn’t require any energy in order to occur. That’s why the celery was able to pull water up overnight. The celery pulled colored water through its stalk via the xylem transport system. The colored water traveled all the way into the leaves, staining them.

The xylem transport system can be seen more clearly when the celery is cut. The colored water stains the xylem cells, making them visible.

One phenomenon that drives the flow of water through a plant is transpiration. Transpiration is the name given to the process by which water evaporates from the leaves of a plant. What do you think would happen if we repeated the experiment using a celery stalk whose leaves had been cut off? Try it and see!

How to Make it Rain Indoors

One of the properties of water is that it can exist in different phases. It can exist as a liquid, which is the form we’re most familiar with, and it can also exist as a solid (ice), or gas (water vapor). In this experiment, we’ll take water through two of its phases – liquid and gas. We’ll observe how temperature causes water to move from one phase into another. This will allow us to get a better idea of what happens to water in nature, and the role temperature plays in the water cycle.

How to Make it Rain Indoors Printable Instructions

• Large container such as a jar
• A ceramic plate
• Heat approximately eight cups of water to just steaming. This can be done on the stovetop or the microwave, but a stovetop will give you more control over the heating process.
• Pour the water into the jar until it is completely full and allow the jar to sit for five minutes. This will heat the jar for the experiment. After five minutes, discard the water.
• Add enough heated water to fill the jar up approximately halfway. Cover the jar opening with the plate, making sure no steam can escape. Let the jar sit for 3 minutes. Observe what happens to the water in the jar. Note any changes you see.
• After 3 minutes have passed, place enough ice on top of the dinner plate to cover its surface. Watch what happens to the jar.

The water cycle is responsible for producing rain. Liquid water evaporates, sending water vapor into the atmosphere. When the water vapor reaches the cooler air in the upper atmosphere, it condenses back into water droplets, forming clouds. If too much water condenses, or if the temperature becomes colder, the condensed water will fall back down to earth in the form of rain.

In this experiment, we replicated these conditions to produce “rain.” First, we let the heated water form water vapor inside the jar. The water vapor filled the space between the water surface and the plate. We then added ice to our plate, initiating a quick temperature drop. The lower temperature caused the water vapor to condense. This was visible as water droplets that beaded and ran down the sides of the jar. This is how rain happens. We made it rain inside our jar!

You might also like this lesson plan: Learning About Glowing Animals – Bioluminescence or Biofluorescence?

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These biology experiments are designed for you to do at home or school using simple equipment. For some experiments, you may need a calculator. Here is a link to an excellent one provided by Web2.0calc .

To access experiments, click on one of the experiments listed below. In most cases, it is simplest to copy the experiment into a word processing program, and then print it out.

A Nervous Experiment

Do you think you need the same number of nerves in every part of your body? Where in your body might you need more nerves? See for yourself! Also in: Español

Air Pollution

The Phoenix metropolitan area, like many large cities, has problems with air pollution at certain times of the year. You can do a simple study to determine some of the factors that affect air pollution.

Farming ants might sound like a crazy thing to do unless you might like to eat chocolate covered ants. It turns out we can learn a lot from ants and the best way is to build your own ant farm. Also in: Español

Birds and Their Songs

We see them practically everywhere. They are found flying in the high mountains and soaring along the thermal winds in the low deserts. There are those that are reclusive and others you can watch from your own back yard. Also in: Español

Breaking Proteins

Catch and Sketch Plankton

Learn to focus on detail and make keen observations that could be overlooked in a picture in this lesson on scientific sketching.

Collecting Ants

There are several different ways to get ants for an ant farm, depending on when you would like to start the farm and how long you would like for your ant farm to last.

Microorganisms in action! Turn a pile of grass clippings into an experiment.

Cutting Out Brain Tumors

Try out some of the new techniques that neurosurgeons are using to guide them during surgery.

Dr. Biology's Virtual Pocket Seed Experiment

Dr. Biology has been busy working on a new experiment and he needs your help. He has collected so much information from the experiment that he needs someone to analyze the data. All the results have been recorded in photographs, including some cool animations. Also in: Español | Français

Be Part of Ask A Biologist

By volunteering, or simply sending us feedback on the site. Scientists, teachers, writers, illustrators, and translators are all important to the program. If you are interested in helping with the website we have a Volunteers page to get the process started.

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Leaf pigments chromatography

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Homemade yogurt

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Rubber chicken bone

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Easy Biology Experiments for Kids

September 17, 2024 By Emma Vanstone Leave a Comment

Biology is the study of life and living things , including plants, animals and microorganisms. Biologists refer to living things as organisms. This collection of biology experiments for kids covers some of the most important concepts in biology

There are many different branches of biology, including:

Ecology – the relationships between organisms

Zoology – the study of animals

Taxonomy – classification of organisms

Anatomy – the structure of organisms

Botany – the study of plants

Microbiology – the study of tiny organisms

Physiology – functions of living organisms

Biology is a vast and exciting area of science covering everything from the smallest virus to evolution, ecosystems and the climate.

Top 10 Biology Experiments for Kids

1. candy dna model.

This candy DNA model is a great way to learn about the double helix structure of DNA and tastes great, too!

2. Colourful flowers – transpiration investigation

Place white flowers in a pot of food colouring and water to change their colour. This activity is a brilliant visual way to learn about transpiration and transport in plants .

3. Investigate the effect of increasing temperatures on transpiration

Use celery and food colouring to find out how increasing temperature affects the rate of transpiration in plants.

4. Osmosis and eggs

Learn about osmosis with an egg without a shell. The shell is removed by soaking the egg in vinegar. Place the egg in water and watch it grow in size as water moves into it.

This is a fantastic visual way to demonstrate osmosis that always makes a big impact.

5. Edible butterfly life cycle

Make an edible butterfly life cycle using fruit, vegetables, pasta or sweets.

6. What Did Dinosaurs Eat? – Dinosaur Poop Investigation

Discover what dinosaurs ate with a fun dinosaur poo investigation ! This is a wonderful activity for younger children who love searching through the playdough for clues to what dinosaurs ate.

7. How does exercise affect heart rate?

Find out how exercise affects heart rate with a simple investigation where children measure their heart rate before and after exercise.

8. What are teeth made from?

Use eggs to find out what teeth are made from and discover the food items that cause them to stain or decay.

9. Digestive system model

Model the digestive system with biscuits, orange juice and tights. This is a slightly gross activity that kids of all ages will love.

10. Make a model lung

Find out how lungs work with a DIY lung model made from a plastic bottle, straw and balloon.

That’s my personal top 10 biology experiments , but there’s plenty more! Learn about water, cells, plants, enzymes and surface tension with the activities below.

All about Water

All living things need water; luckily, the Earth has a lot of water! Water is made up of one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms. This edible model of a water molecule shows the structure.

The yellow sweets represent hydrogen, and the purple sweet represents oxygen. The formula for a water molecule is H 2 O .

Water is a polar molecule. It has a positive end and a negative end. The negative end of one water molecule is attracted to the positive end of another water molecule, resulting in a hydrogen bond between the two molecules. This attraction between water molecules means water has a high surface tension. There are lots of simple ways to demonstrate surface tension. An investigation using a bowl of water with pepper sprinkled over the top is good to start with.

Surface Tension Demonstration

You’ll need.

A bowl of water

Ground black pepper

Washing up liquid ( dish soap )

Instructions

Fill the bowl almost to the top with tap water.

Sprinkle black paper over the surface.

Place a drop of washing-up liquid in the centre of the water.

The pepper should move very quickly to the sides.

How does it work?

The washing-up liquid reduces the surface tension of the water, which allows the water particles at the surface to spread out, taking the pepper with them!

More surface tension demonstrations

Find out how many drops of water you can fit on a coin with Rookie Parenting.

Use surface tension to make lollysticks move in water.

Try the classic magic milk experiment . Adding dish soap makes food colouring in milk explode with colour!

Enzyme Demonstrations

Organisms use enzymes to speed up chemical reactions. Enzymes are biological catalysts. The easiest way to learn about enzymes is to use them! A microorganism called yeast is used in bread making as it contains enzymes that convert sugar and starch ( from the sugar and flour in the bread mix ) into carbon dioxide and ethanol. The carbon dioxide gas makes the dough rise. Giving bread the light, airy texture we all enjoy.

Enzymes only function in the right environment for them, which is different for different enzymes. Yeast needs warm, moist conditions, which is why bread dough is left somewhere warm to rise before baking.

Learn about enzymes with pizza or bread dough

You can learn about the enzymes in yeast by making pizza or bread dough ! If the dough is left somewhere cool, it won’t rise as much as dough left in a warm place, as the enzymes in the yeast won’t work as well.

Cell structure and function activities

All organisms are made up of one or more cells.

Bacteria and protozoa are examples of single-celled organisms.

A group of cells working together is called a tissue. Many tissues working together are an organ.

Cells contain organelles, which allow them to function.

Plant cell models

Making a cell model is a fun way to learn about cell structure.

Jelly/jello or a plate

Candy/sweets

Make your jello as per the instructions in a lightly greased container.

When the jello is set, gently tip it into the container in which you want to make the cell.

Add sweets to look like each organelle.

Use toothpicks and stickers as signs to label the cell model .

Another idea is to combine this activity with the pizza dough to learn about enzymes and create a pizza model of a cell!

Learn more about cells, organelles and the difference between animal and plant cells with my animal and plant cell revision cards.

Specialised cells

Find out about specialised cells with a 3D model of a neurone cell .

Photosynthesis Experiments

Photosynthesis is the process by which organisms ( mostly plants ) create energy. It occurs in organelles called chloroplasts .

Carbon dioxide + water  (and light ) ———> glucose and oxygen

The energy for the reaction comes from sunlight. Photosynthesis is an essential process for life on Earth. It creates oxygen and also helps to remove the carbon dioxide created by human activity.

Plants use the glucose made during photosynthesis for cellular respiration .

Photosynthesis demonstration

Science Buddies have a great photosynthesis investigation you can try.

Plant structure and function

Dissect a flower.

Dissecting a flower is a great way to learn about the different parts of a plant and their function.

Any flowers with large parts – lily, daffodil, tulip

Magnifying glass

Lay the flowers out on a table. Try to identify the different parts.

Label areas of the different parts of a flower on a sheet of white card or paper plate and match the dissected pieces to the correct label.

Another easy way to learn about plant structure and function is to make a 3D flower model .

Osmosis Experiments

Osmosis can be a tricky concept to get your head around as it is the movement of water molecules across a partially permeable membrane from a region of higher water concentration to a region of lower water concentration. This can be demonstrated using an egg!

You might be wondering how on Earth an egg with a shell can be used to demonstrate the movement of water, and you’re right to wonder. The first thing you have to do is remove the shell by soaking the egg in vinegar. The eggshell dissolves, leaving the semi-permeable membrane behind.

Containers big enough to hold an egg

Soak an egg in vinegar for 24 hours. Carefully remove the egg and rinse. You should be able to remove most of the shell. Leave it in vinegar for another 24 hours and then rinse again.

Place the egg in a cup or jar of water and leave for two hours. Water will move into the egg by osmosis as the concentration of water inside the egg is lower than outside. The egg will grow in size.

If the egg is placed in a concentrated sugar solution, water will move out of the egg into the sugar solution as the concentration of water inside the egg is greater than the sugar solution.

More Biology experiments and activities for kids

Find out why surface area to volume ratio is such an important concept in biology using sugar cubes.

Learn about Mitosis with paper plate models.

Extract your own DNA at home!

Demonstrate how diffusion works with squash or food colouring and water.

Make plasticine models of viruses to learn about their structure.

Learn about the structure of DNA with this candy model that shows the double helix structure of DNA.

Find out how trees disperse seeds with my selection of seed dispersal activities .

Model the digestive system with a pair of tights! This is an excellent way for children to really visualise how food passes through the human body.

Make a model of a pumping heart to discover why heart valves are so important.

Biology resources on the web

Learn.Genetics has lots of brilliant resources about genes, human health, neuroscience and ecology.

For younger children, check out Maddie Moate on YouTube . The channel covers topics from finding out how cinnamon grows to beekeeping, all explained in a fun and visual way.

Can you recommend any other biology experiments for kids for us to try?

Last Updated on September 17, 2024 by Emma Vanstone

Safety Notice

Science Sparks ( Wild Sparks Enterprises Ltd ) are not liable for the actions of activity of any person who uses the information in this resource or in any of the suggested further resources. Science Sparks assume no liability with regard to injuries or damage to property that may occur as a result of using the information and carrying out the practical activities contained in this resource or in any of the suggested further resources.

These activities are designed to be carried out by children working with a parent, guardian or other appropriate adult. The adult involved is fully responsible for ensuring that the activities are carried out safely.

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20 Hands-on Biology Activities For Kids

Teaching kids about biology can be a great way to teach them about the world around them and understand the science of life. In this post, we’ll share some easy biology experiments and activities you can do with kids, whether you’re a parent or a teacher. From learning how to build DNA to exploring how plants grow, there are so many fun activities kids will love!

What is Biology?

Biology is the study of living things, and it helps us understand how all living creatures work.

It’s like a big puzzle where scientists, or biologists, try to figure out how plants, animals, and even tiny organisms function. They look at things like how our bodies work, how plants grow, how animals behave, and even how different creatures are related to each other.

Biology covers everything from the tiniest cells that make up our bodies to the vast diversity of life in the world, from the smallest bugs to the biggest whales. It’s like exploring a huge, amazing book about life on Earth. 

Why is it important for kids to study biology?

• Understanding Life : Biology helps kids understand how all living things, including themselves, work. It’s like learning the owner’s manual for living beings.
• Respect for Nature : It teaches kids to appreciate and respect nature, from the tiniest insects to the biggest trees. This respect for the environment is crucial for a sustainable future.
• Healthy Living : Biology teaches about the human body and how to stay healthy. Kids learn about nutrition, exercise, and how to take care of their bodies.
• Curiosity and Discovery : It encourages curiosity and a love for exploring the world around them. Kids get to be little scientists, asking questions and finding answers.
• Environmental Awareness : Biology helps kids understand important topics like climate change, pollution, and conservation. This knowledge empowers them to make the world a better place.

Biology Topics

Plants: Kids can learn about different types of plants, their parts (roots, stems, leaves, flowers), and how they grow. They may also explore the importance of plants in providing food and oxygen for living beings.

Animals: Biology involves studying various animals and their characteristics. Kids can learn about the diversity of animals, their habitats, and how they adapt to survive in different environments.

Human Body: Basic concepts of the human body, such as organs, bones, muscles, and the five senses, can be introduced. Kids can learn how their bodies work and how to keep themselves healthy.

Life Cycles: Biology includes understanding life cycles of different organisms, like butterflies, frogs, and plants. Kids can observe and discuss the stages of growth and development.

Habitats and Ecosystems: Children can explore different habitats, such as forests, deserts, oceans, and learn about the plants and animals. They can also understand the interconnections between living things in an ecosystem.

Microscopic World: Kids can be introduced to the fascinating world of microscopic organisms, such as bacteria and protozoa. They may learn about their importance in nature and human health.

Genetics: In simple terms, genetics can be explained as the study of how traits are passed from parents to offspring. Kids can understand basic inheritance patterns and family resemblances.

Food Chains and Webs: Biology involves exploring food chains and food webs, showing how energy flows from one organism to another in an ecosystem.

Adaptations: Kids can learn how different animals have adaptations that help them survive in their environments, such as camouflage or unique body features.

Nature Observations: Encouraging kids to observe and explore the natural world around them is an integral part of biology. Nature walks, and outdoor activities foster a deeper appreciation for living organisms.

Free Biology Experiments Guide

Download and save this handy biology experiments guide and science process pack for your next science lesson!

Fun Biology Questions to Ask

• What is photosynthesis, and how do plants use it?
• How do animals adapt to their environments?
• What’s the purpose of the heart in our bodies?
• How do bees help flowers and plants grow?
• Why do we have different seasons, and how does that affect nature?
• How do animals communicate with each other?
• What’s the role of DNA in living organisms?
• How do animals like chameleons change their colors?
• What are ecosystems, and why are they important?
• What are the 5 senses of the body? Think of fun examples for each one!

Quick Toddler or Preschooler Biology

• Start with easy ideas like recognizing common animals, plants, or body parts using pictures and simple books.
• Plan activities like planting seeds or observing bugs. Kids learn biology through play and exploration.
• Explain things in everyday language. For example, say, “Plants use sunlight for their food” instead of using complex words.
• Encourage thinking by asking questions like, “Why do leaves change color in the fall?” It helps kids explore and wonder.
• Go on nature walks to see plants and animals. Talk about what you see and how they act.
• Share nature stories. Kids remember better when learning is part of a story.
• Talk about the 5 senses or do an All About Me activity!

Biology Life Cycle Activities

💡New for the Holidays: Reindeer Facts and Life Cycle for Kids

• Life Cycle Bug Play Dough Mats
• Ladybug Life Cycle
• Frog Life Cycle
• Butterfly Life Cycle
• Penguin Life Cycle
• Bean Sprout Life Cycle
• Plant Life Cycle
• Bee Life Cycle
• Earthworm Life Cycle
• Pine Tree Life Cycle
• Reindeer Life Cycle and Facts

Biology Experiments To Explore

Explore osmosis.

Kids can discover how water moves in and out of plant cells in this  Potato Osmosis Lab . You can also demonstrate this with growing gummy bears !

Make A Heart Model

Create an engaging and educational  Heart Model STEM Project  with your kids using household items like plastic bottles, bendy straws, and clay.

Extract DNA From Strawberries

Learn  how to extract DNA from strawberries  in this fun and educational science experiment that uncovers the secrets of DNA and genetics. 

Build A Candy DNA Model

Explore how to build a  Candy DNA model  with this fun and educational edible science activity, perfect for teaching kids about the structure of DNA using candy-like licorice and marshmallows. Make sure to also grab this DNA coloring sheet .

Make A Lung Model

Kids can learn  how to make a lung model , which involves creating a simple lung model using a plastic bottle, balloons, and a straw to demonstrate how lungs function when we breathe.

X-Ray Project

Explore the principles of X-rays inspired by scientist Marie Curie’s groundbreaking work, and make your own X-rays with this hands-on STEAM project .

Create A Seed Jar

Explore the fascinating world of seed germination, watch roots grow, and identify the parts of a plant with this  Seed Germination Experiment .

Build A Mini Greenhouse

Enjoy growing plants with a mini greenhouse made from plastic bottles . Watch the life cycle of a plant unfold with simple materials from your recycling bin.

Explore Leaf Chromatography

Discover the science of  leaf chromatography  with this STEM activity that teaches kids about the pigments in leaves and how they change colors during the fall season.

Make Spinach Glow

Transform ordinary spinach that you eat into a glowing green mixture under ultraviolet light! Learn about the pigments present in plants, particularly chlorophyll and how certain pigments can absorb light at one wavelength and emit light at another, resulting in the observed glow.

Dissect A Flower

Learn about the parts of a flower and what they do with a fun printable parts of a flower diagram ! Then gather your own flowers, and do a simple flower dissection to identify and name the parts of a flower.

Color Celery

Set up a  celery experiment with food coloring that shows how water travels through a plant.

Explore How Plants Breathe

Learn about plant respiration with a few leaves you can grab from your backyard.

Make Red Cabbage Indicator

Find out how cabbage can be used to test liquids of varying acid levels. Depending on the pH of the liquid, the cabbage turns shades of pink, purple, or green!

Explore Leaf Veins

Learn about the structure of plant leaves and  how water travels through leaf veins . This fun and simple biology experiment is a great way to see behind the scenes of how plants work!

Explore the world of  germs  by learning about hand hygiene and the importance of proper handwashing techniques using bread.

Make Blubber

How do whales, polar bears or even penguins stay warm? Make blubber and test out how it works as an insulator with this  blubber experiment .

Bonus: Printable Biology Worksheets

Learn about where different animals live and various biomes with these  printable biomes  of the world  lapbook project.

Nitrogen Cycle

Discover the fascinating world of the  nitrogen cycle  and the important role micro-organisms have in this process.

Carbon Cycle

Kids can learn all about the Carbon Cycle and witness the exchange of carbon through various processes.

Animal and Plant Cells

Explore the parts of the animal cell or the plant cell with this simple STEAM project. Or grab the complete Animal and Plant Cells Project Pack here.

Learn all about the double helix structure of DNA with this printable DNA coloring worksheet ! Color in the parts that make up DNA, as you explore our amazing genetic code.

Photosynthesis

Green plants make their own food, and food for us through the process of photosynthesis. Use these photosynthesis worksheets to introduce the steps of photosynthesis.

Pollinators

Explore the important role of pollinators in the reproduction of flowering plants with our printable pollinator activity guide.

Food Chains

These printable food chain worksheets are a great way to learn about the flow of energy through simple food chains in ecosystems.

Animal Adaptions

Find instructions and templates to explore animal adaptions in our printable Animal Adaptations Project Pack .

Living and Non-Living

Use the free worksheets to teach kindergarten and elementary students how to classify things as living and non-living.

Animal Migration

Dive into the amazing world of animal migration, and the incredible journeys animal embark on all over the world. Printable activities, and facts.

Add these fantastic reptile worksheets to your study of the animal kingdom, and use them to put together a lapbook project about the fascinating world of reptiles.

Vertebrates and Invertebrates

These printable vertebrate and invertebrate worksheets provide a fun way to learn about two different groups of animals.

Why Do Leaves Change Color

Find out what causes leaves to change color in the fall with this fun  Why Do Leaves Change Color lapbook project.

How to Set Up a Biology Project

Want to turn one of these fun biology activities into a science fair project? Then, you will want to check out these helpful resources.

• Easy Science Fair Projects
• Science Project Tips From A Teacher
• Science Fair Board Ideas

Printable Science Projects For Kids

If you’re looking to grab all of our printable science projects in one convenient place plus exclusive worksheets and bonuses like a STEAM Project pack, our Science Project Pack is what you need! Over 300+ Pages!

• 90+ classic science activities  with journal pages, supply lists, set up and process, and science information.  NEW! Activity-specific observation pages!
• Best science practices posters  and our original science method process folders for extra alternatives!
• Be a Collector activities pack  introduces kids to the world of making collections through the eyes of a scientist. What will they collect first?
• Know the Words Science vocabulary pack  includes flashcards, crosswords, and word searches that illuminate keywords in the experiments!
• My science journal writing prompts  explore what it means to be a scientist!!
• Bonus STEAM Project Pack:  Art meets science with doable projects!
• Bonus Quick Grab Packs for Biology, Earth Science, Chemistry, and Physics.

Subscribe to receive a free 5-Day STEM Challenge Guide

~ projects to try now ~.

10 Awesome Biology Experiments Ideas For High School Aspirants

Science is no fun without practical experiments. Unlike middle school, where you limit your study and inquiry of science to the theoretical realm, high school has a different scene. Experiments are a major part of studying science in high school, and biology all the more so. Biology is fascinating. It makes us wonder at the complex system which makes the human body function efficiently; it has all the answers to the questions of death, sickness, and life. But we must admit that only the theoretical explanation of these complex concepts never suffices to give us a satisfactory understanding. That is where practical experiments come to the rescue. 

Therefore, this post will cover 10 fascinating biology experiments that high school students can do independently, even at home. 

Cool Experiments To Do In Your Bio Lab

While many are intrigued by art competitions , others are moved toward robotic classes. However, in a bunch of students, there are a few who love biology experiments. Hence, here are a few experiments that can be tried out by high schoolers if biology is the subject that piques their interest:

1. Extract DNA

Everyone knows DNA is the agent behind our hereditary traits. Residing in the cell’s nucleus, it guides major aspects of our physiognomy. Usually, the DNA is not visible to the naked eye, you need a powerful microscope to view it, but with this experiment, you can have a fine look at the DNA with this DNA extracting experiment. 

Basically, you will be forcefully breaking down some cell walls of the extracted cells by dipping it into your extraction solution. Adding 35ml of dish soap and 5gm of salt in 240 ml of water will give you the extraction solution. Dip and mix some mashed banana slices into the extract, leading the DNA to head out into the solution. Then we will use some alcohol to force the DNA to join up into large chains that we can actually see. You will get a fluffy white substance, the DNA that is visible to the naked eye, made possible by this extraction experiment. 

2. Dissect A Flower

Everyone has theoretically seen and known the different parts of a flower. Some exceptional students might even have that picture inscribed in their memory. Very well if you have that, but the hands-on experience of viewing those parts with your own eyes can definitely beat any other theoretical picture-viewing experience. 

So, first thing first, go out and choose a bloom. Observe the flower and point out the petals, stamen, and pistil. Use a razor to remove the stamen and observe the Filament and Anther under magnifying glasses. Wipe out some pollen grains and have a detailed look at it under the microscope while you are at them. Next up, remove the pistil and observe your flower’s ovary, stigma, and style with a magnifying glass. This is the simplest yet a fascinating experiment on the list. 

3. Raise A Butterfly

Again, we have the theoretical knowledge of the life cycle of a butterfly. Yet it takes us by surprise and wonder when we see the process through our own eyes. So, get ready to be fascinated by a butterfly’s journey from an ugly worm to a colourful butterfly. 

The process is easy. You get a caterpillar, observe it daily, and note the changes. The changes will be as precise as your books have always told you. First off, a butterfly lays an egg and a caterpillar hatches from the egg. The caterpillar eats and grows, shedding its skin several times to accommodate its growing belly. Once the caterpillar reaches the right size, it sheds its skin for the last time, revealing the chrysalis, which quickly hardens. Inside the chrysalis, the caterpillar goes through metamorphosis and changes into a butterfly. At the right time, the butterfly breaks out. It hangs onto the chrysalis for a bit, just until its wings dry out and harden. Then, it flies off in search of nectar. 

So, in the end, you will be sitting back and enjoying the release of the butterfly you raised with your own very hands.   

4. Frog Dissection

Dissecting a frog is one of those lab activities that fascinate and chill you simultaneously. But before you start with the dissection, make sure you take note of all the outer organs like the skin, legs, head, digits, and urinary outlet (cloaca) of the specimen. 

You will need a good scalpel, pins, and a dissection tray to cut the frog. After these things are in place, you are all set to perform the three significant incisions on the specimen. Start by cutting from the jaw to down between the legs, then make two horizontal incisions, one above the neck and the other towards the bottom of its legs. At this point, you will start seeing some organs residing in the abdominal cavity. Repeat the same incision on the frog’s abdomen to open the abdominal cavity. Observe the heart, and identify the major organs like the liver, stomach, intestines, and oviducts. 

This experiment will definitely leave you amazed at the complex system of nerves, muscles, and bloods that functions interdependently to sustain a living being. However, this experiment should be done in front of teachers and professors in the lab.

5. Diversity Among Plant Samples

Another simple biology experiment involves going into your natural environment, such as a local park, to observe diversity among plant samples. To make the experiment more detailed, students can rub collected samples on filter paper to observe which plants present which colors. 

Teens can work to find out why certain plants present certain colors. They can also dissect the flowers of the plants and paste the dissected parts of the flowers in their observation notebooks to make a note of the differences between the flowers of the different species of plants. 

6. Yeast Experiment

Another simple and easy experiment on the list for high schoolers is the yeaThis experiment is easy because it only involves taking out four different food samples on different plates and a long-time observation of the mold that grows on each sample. 

Studying mold is an excellent way to learn more about ecology and biology. This experiment compares how fast mold grows on different types of foods kept in many American homes. Some of the foods are generally kept in refrigerators to extend shelf life, while others are commonly stored at room temperature. This experiment shows that certain foods grow mold faster than others, which is one reason why these foods are often kept in the refrigerator. 

Going a step further, the students can also do research inspired by this experiment and find answers to questions such as: what makes a mold grow? And how does one prevent their growth?

7. Look at cell division under the microscope

Cheap digital microscopes with high magnification power that can be directly connected to your laptop or smartphone are easily available in the market nowadays. You can make use of such microscopes to observe every little thing you find at home or outdoors.  

A great experiment to do at home with a microscope is to look at how cells divide in different organisms. One of the easiest is baker’s yeast. With a magnification of at least 400x, you can start discerning the shapes of individual yeast cells in water. You will notice that some of them have little buds on them, which is the way they grow and divide. 

Taking it one step further, you can also take the tip of the onion’s root and observe them to study the different stages of mitosis as well. 

8. Ferment your own food

Bacteria and yeast are practically geniuses in the art of fermentation. Humans have been taking their help for the longest time to make food items such as bread and alcohol. And it is quite easy to ferment your own food at home. 

In most cases, you need a starter culture of the bacteria or fungi that make the food you will be fermenting. You can get it from someone already doing fermentation at home or buy it online. Many options range from kombucha, kefir, or mead to yogurt, cheese, kimchi, and sauerkraut. Each fermented food has different requirements, so ensure you have everything you need before starting. After you have everything in place, you are ready to experiment with this fermented food and its varied tastes. 

9. Examining Fingerprints

The tips of each finger of your hand have a combination of lines and features in distinctive patterns that we call fingerprints. Fingerprints are one of the fascinating features of the human body. We have been told that each of us is unique in our light, and our fingerprints prove it to be so. You can analyze your own uniqueness by analyzing your very own fingerprints in this project. All you need is paper, magnifying glass, and stamp ink.

First, you need to press a finger against the ink pad and then against a piece of paper. Then, use the magnifying glass to examine the fingerprints and look for arches, whorls, and loops. You can record your finding on your paper. And then take a friend’s fingerprints to analyze the differences. 

10. Create A Fall Leaf (Or Signs Of Spring) Journal

Biology is all about studying life and learning more about our natural surroundings. A Fall Leaf journal or a Signs of Spring journal will help your students learn about the trees and bushes that are in your area. This experiment is easy, needs minimal effort, and is fun and exciting as well. 

Things To Remember

Science experiments are interesting by nature, but this aspect of their nature shouldn’t keep us from maintaining our share of vigilant caution. Science experiments could sometimes wreak havoc if we do not take enough caution while doing these experiments. Therefore, in order to prevent yourself from ruining your own experiments, you have to follow some safety instructions while doing these experiments. 

Wear covered shoes and long pants while performing any experiment, and keep your hair up so it can’t fall into your experiment or a flame. Don’t carelessly sniff or taste any chemicals; don’t just experiment with everything you get your hands on. Make sure you have your full attention in the experiments, and handle everything with care, especially sharp objects like knives or objects that could produce a flame. And at the end of your experiment, you should also know how to dispose of the waste properly. 

In the end of it, what matters the most is that we genuinely imbibe the lessons that we learn from our experiments. These biology experiments will get you further into the fascinating world of biology. If you want to further your knowledge, you may also visit science labs, perform science experiments in the lab, attend workshops and seminars, and meet people and learn from their experiences. 

Keep learning, keep experimenting, and keep enjoying the process of learning. 

Sananda Bhattacharya, Chief Editor of TheHighSchooler, is dedicated to enhancing operations and growth. With degrees in Literature and Asian Studies from Presidency University, Kolkata, she leverages her educational and innovative background to shape TheHighSchooler into a pivotal resource hub. Providing valuable insights, practical activities, and guidance on school life, graduation, scholarships, and more, Sananda’s leadership enriches the journey of high school students.

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20 Fun Biology Experiments for Elementary School Students

Are you seeking engaging, interactive biology experiments to captivate elementary school students? This blog post will explore 20 exciting biology experiments that will spark curiosity and promote hands-on learning. Let's dive in!

Are you seeking engaging, interactive biology experiments to captivate elementary school students? Look no further! This blog post will explore 20 exciting biology experiments that will spark curiosity and promote hands-on learning. Let's dive in!

Exploring Plant Life

1. growing seeds in different conditions.

By conducting this simple experiment, teach your students about the role of sunlight, water, and soil in plant growth. Have your students plant seeds in various conditions, such as different amounts of sunlight or soil types. Observe and compare the growth of the plants over time.

2. Leaf Chromatography

Introduce the concept of chromatography by examining the different pigments in leaves. Have your students collect leaves from different plants and use filter paper and rubbing alcohol to separate the pigments. This experiment will allow them to explore the diversity of natural colors.

3. DIY Terrariums

Bring the water cycle and ecosystems to life with this hands-on experiment. Guide your students in creating miniature terrariums using glass jars, soil, rocks, and small plants. Discuss how the plants release moisture through transpiration, which condenses on the jar walls and falls back as precipitation.

4. Parts of a Flower Dissection

Engage your students in plant anatomy with this dissection activity. Provide flowers for each student or group and guide them through identifying the different parts of a flower, such as petals, sepals, stamens, and pistils. This experiment will deepen their understanding of how flowers function and reproduce.

5. Photosynthesis in Action

Unleash the power of sunlight with this photosynthesis experiment. Ask your students to collect leaves and cover a portion of each leaf with aluminum foil. After a few days, remove the foil and observe the color change in the uncovered area, indicating chlorophyll production through photosynthesis.

Investigating the World of Microorganisms

6. yogurt bacteria culture.

Introduce your students to beneficial bacteria by guiding them in culturing yogurt at home. Discuss the role of bacteria in our digestive system and how they help break down food. This experiment will provide a hands-on experience in understanding the importance of these microorganisms.

7. Pond Water Microscope Investigation

Take your students on a microscopic adventure by exploring microorganisms in pond water. Provide microscopes and guide them in collecting water samples from a nearby pond or stream. Observe and discuss the diverse microorganisms, such as amoebas, paramecia, and algae.

8. Bread Mold Growth

Uncover the fascinating world of fungi by investigating bread mold growth. Ask your students to place slices of bread in different environments, such as a sealed bag, a moist container, or exposed to sunlight. Monitor and record mold growth over time, discussing the conditions that promote fungal growth.

9. Ant Farm Exploration

Invite your students to observe ant behavior and learn about insects by setting up a simple ant farm. Provide an ant farm kit or guide them in creating one using a transparent container, sand, and ants. Observe how ants build tunnels, communicate, and work together as a colony.

10. Bacterial Handprint Experiment

Highlight the importance of handwashing with this eye-opening experiment. Ask your students to press their hands onto agar plates or petri dishes before and after washing their hands thoroughly. Incubate the plates and observe the bacterial growth, emphasizing the need for proper hand hygiene.

Animal Kingdom Adventures

11. butterfly life cycle observation.

Embark on a captivating journey through the life cycle of butterflies. Provide caterpillars or chrysalises for your students to raise and observe. Document the stages of metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly, and discuss the importance of butterflies in pollination.

12. Owl Pellet Dissection

Unravel the secrets of food chains and predator-prey relationships with an owl pellet dissection. Provide owl pellets for your students to dissect and identify the bones of prey animals. This experiment will deepen their understanding of the interactions within an ecosystem.

13. Eggshell Toothpaste Experiment

Small Bites Pediatric Dentistry

Investigate the impact of different substances on tooth enamel using eggshells. Guide your students in soaking eggshells in various liquids like vinegar, soda, or fruit juice. Observe and discuss the effects of these substances on the eggshells, relating them to dental health.

14. Fish Tank Ecosystem

Create a mini aquarium in your classroom to study the interactions between fish and their environment. Discuss the concept of ecosystems, including the nitrogen cycle and food webs. Your students will be able to observe aquatic life and understand the delicate balance within an ecosystem.

15. Camouflage in Nature

Unleash your students' creativity while exploring the concept of camouflage. Provide paper animals and guide them in designing patterns that blend with different environments. Test their designs by placing the paper animals in corresponding backgrounds and discussing how camouflage aids in survival.

Human Body Exploration

16. diy lung model.

Bring the respiratory system to life with a DIY lung model. Using balloons, plastic bottles, and straws, guide your students in creating a model demonstrating how air moves in and out of our lungs during breathing. This experiment will enhance their understanding of our amazing respiratory system.

17. Taste Bud Mapping

Delve into the sense of taste with a simple taste bud mapping experiment. Provide taste test samples, such as sweet, salty, sour, and bitter substances, and guide your students in mapping the different taste sensations on their tongues. Discuss the role of taste buds in detecting flavors.

18. Skeletal System with Q-tips

Build a model of the human skeleton using Q-tips to understand bone structure. Guide your students in arranging Q-tips to represent bones and discuss the different types of bones in our bodies. This hands-on activity will reinforce their knowledge of the skeletal system.

19. DIY Digestive System

Create a hands-on model of the digestive system to illustrate the journey of food through our bodies. Using household materials like plastic bags, crackers, and water, guide your students in simulating the process of digestion from the mouth to the intestines. This experiment will make learning about digestion fun and memorable.

20. Heart Rate Investigation

Measure and compare heart rates under different conditions to introduce your students to the cardiovascular system. Ask them to take their pulse before and after various activities, such as exercise or relaxation. Discuss how the heart responds to changes in activity level, emphasizing the importance of cardiovascular health.

Partnering with a Lessonpal Tutor

You may also consider partnering with a Lessonpal Biology tutor who can provide additional guidance tailored to your student's learning needs.

Remember, education is all about exploration and discovery! Encourage your students to embrace curiosity and dive into these exciting biology experiments. So why not take advantage of the expertise of a Lessonpal Biology tutor to make the learning experience even more enriching and enjoyable? These 20 fun biology experiments will engage your elementary school students and foster a deeper understanding of various biological concepts. To further enhance their learning experience, I recommend exploring additional resources for teachers and students, such as online articles, books, or educational websites dedicated to biology experiments.

Additional Resources:

In addition to these 20 fun biology experiments, plenty of other resources are available to enhance your students' learning experience further. Here are a few suggestions:

• Online Articles: Explore websites like National Geographic Kids, Science Buddies, and Education.com for many articles and resources on biology experiments for elementary school students. These platforms often provide step-by-step instructions, explanations of scientific concepts, and additional experiment ideas.
• Books: Visit your local library or bookstore for biology experiment books for elementary school students. Look for titles like "The Everything Kids' Science Experiments Book" by Tom Robinson or "Janice VanCleave's Biology For Every Kid: 101 Easy Experiments That Really Work" by Janice VanCleave. These books offer a variety of engaging experiments with detailed explanations and background information.
• Educational Websites : Check out Mystery Science, Khan Academy, and STEM Learning websites for interactive biology activities and lessons. These platforms provide video tutorials, quizzes, and hands-on activities that can supplement your classroom experiments.
• Science Kits: Consider investing in biology experiment kits for elementary school students. Companies like Thames & Kosmos and Steve Spangler Science offer kits with all the materials and instructions needed to conduct various experiments. These kits often include detailed explanations of the scientific principles behind each experiment.

Remember, the key to successful learning is providing various resources and opportunities for exploration. By incorporating these additional resources into your lesson plans, you can create a well-rounded and enriching biology curriculum for your elementary school students. Go ahead and inspire your students to embrace curiosity, dive into these exciting biology experiments, and explore the vast world of science!

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72 Easy Science Experiments Using Materials You Already Have On Hand

Because science doesn’t have to be complicated.

If there is one thing that is guaranteed to get your students excited, it’s a good science experiment! While some experiments require expensive lab equipment or dangerous chemicals, there are plenty of cool projects you can do with regular household items. We’ve rounded up a big collection of easy science experiments that anybody can try, and kids are going to love them!

Easy Chemistry Science Experiments

Easy physics science experiments, easy biology and environmental science experiments, easy engineering experiments and stem challenges.

1. Taste the Rainbow

Teach your students about diffusion while creating a beautiful and tasty rainbow! Tip: Have extra Skittles on hand so your class can eat a few!

Learn more: Skittles Diffusion

2. Crystallize sweet treats

Crystal science experiments teach kids about supersaturated solutions. This one is easy to do at home, and the results are absolutely delicious!

Learn more: Candy Crystals

3. Make a volcano erupt

This classic experiment demonstrates a chemical reaction between baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and vinegar (acetic acid), which produces carbon dioxide gas, water, and sodium acetate.

Learn more: Best Volcano Experiments

4. Make elephant toothpaste

This fun project uses yeast and a hydrogen peroxide solution to create overflowing “elephant toothpaste.” Tip: Add an extra fun layer by having kids create toothpaste wrappers for plastic bottles.

5. Blow the biggest bubbles you can

Add a few simple ingredients to dish soap solution to create the largest bubbles you’ve ever seen! Kids learn about surface tension as they engineer these bubble-blowing wands.

Learn more: Giant Soap Bubbles

6. Demonstrate the “magic” leakproof bag

All you need is a zip-top plastic bag, sharp pencils, and water to blow your kids’ minds. Once they’re suitably impressed, teach them how the “trick” works by explaining the chemistry of polymers.

Learn more: Leakproof Bag

7. Use apple slices to learn about oxidation

Have students make predictions about what will happen to apple slices when immersed in different liquids, then put those predictions to the test. Have them record their observations.

Learn more: Apple Oxidation

8. Float a marker man

Their eyes will pop out of their heads when you “levitate” a stick figure right off the table! This experiment works due to the insolubility of dry-erase marker ink in water, combined with the lighter density of the ink.

Learn more: Floating Marker Man

9. Discover density with hot and cold water

There are a lot of easy science experiments you can do with density. This one is extremely simple, involving only hot and cold water and food coloring, but the visuals make it appealing and fun.

Learn more: Layered Water

10. Layer more liquids

This density demo is a little more complicated, but the effects are spectacular. Slowly layer liquids like honey, dish soap, water, and rubbing alcohol in a glass. Kids will be amazed when the liquids float one on top of the other like magic (except it is really science).

Learn more: Layered Liquids

11. Grow a carbon sugar snake

Easy science experiments can still have impressive results! This eye-popping chemical reaction demonstration only requires simple supplies like sugar, baking soda, and sand.

Learn more: Carbon Sugar Snake

12. Mix up some slime

Tell kids you’re going to make slime at home, and watch their eyes light up! There are a variety of ways to make slime, so try a few different recipes to find the one you like best.

13. Make homemade bouncy balls

These homemade bouncy balls are easy to make since all you need is glue, food coloring, borax powder, cornstarch, and warm water. You’ll want to store them inside a container like a plastic egg because they will flatten out over time.

Learn more: Make Your Own Bouncy Balls

14. Create eggshell chalk

Eggshells contain calcium, the same material that makes chalk. Grind them up and mix them with flour, water, and food coloring to make your very own sidewalk chalk.

Learn more: Eggshell Chalk

15. Make naked eggs

This is so cool! Use vinegar to dissolve the calcium carbonate in an eggshell to discover the membrane underneath that holds the egg together. Then, use the “naked” egg for another easy science experiment that demonstrates osmosis .

Learn more: Naked Egg Experiment

16. Turn milk into plastic

This sounds a lot more complicated than it is, but don’t be afraid to give it a try. Use simple kitchen supplies to create plastic polymers from plain old milk. Sculpt them into cool shapes when you’re done!

17. Test pH using cabbage

Teach kids about acids and bases without needing pH test strips! Simply boil some red cabbage and use the resulting water to test various substances—acids turn red and bases turn green.

Learn more: Cabbage pH

18. Clean some old coins

Use common household items to make old oxidized coins clean and shiny again in this simple chemistry experiment. Ask kids to predict (hypothesize) which will work best, then expand the learning by doing some research to explain the results.

Learn more: Cleaning Coins

19. Pull an egg into a bottle

This classic easy science experiment never fails to delight. Use the power of air pressure to suck a hard-boiled egg into a jar, no hands required.

Learn more: Egg in a Bottle

20. Blow up a balloon (without blowing)

Chances are good you probably did easy science experiments like this when you were in school. The baking soda and vinegar balloon experiment demonstrates the reactions between acids and bases when you fill a bottle with vinegar and a balloon with baking soda.

21 Assemble a DIY lava lamp

This 1970s trend is back—as an easy science experiment! This activity combines acid-base reactions with density for a totally groovy result.

22. Explore how sugary drinks affect teeth

The calcium content of eggshells makes them a great stand-in for teeth. Use eggs to explore how soda and juice can stain teeth and wear down the enamel. Expand your learning by trying different toothpaste-and-toothbrush combinations to see how effective they are.

Learn more: Sugar and Teeth Experiment

23. Mummify a hot dog

If your kids are fascinated by the Egyptians, they’ll love learning to mummify a hot dog! No need for canopic jars , just grab some baking soda and get started.

24. Extinguish flames with carbon dioxide

This is a fiery twist on acid-base experiments. Light a candle and talk about what fire needs in order to survive. Then, create an acid-base reaction and “pour” the carbon dioxide to extinguish the flame. The CO2 gas acts like a liquid, suffocating the fire.

25. Send secret messages with invisible ink

Turn your kids into secret agents! Write messages with a paintbrush dipped in lemon juice, then hold the paper over a heat source and watch the invisible become visible as oxidation goes to work.

Learn more: Invisible Ink

26. Create dancing popcorn

This is a fun version of the classic baking soda and vinegar experiment, perfect for the younger crowd. The bubbly mixture causes popcorn to dance around in the water.

27. Shoot a soda geyser sky-high

You’ve always wondered if this really works, so it’s time to find out for yourself! Kids will marvel at the chemical reaction that sends diet soda shooting high in the air when Mentos are added.

Learn more: Soda Explosion

28. Send a teabag flying

Hot air rises, and this experiment can prove it! You’ll want to supervise kids with fire, of course. For more safety, try this one outside.

Learn more: Flying Tea Bags

29. Create magic milk

This fun and easy science experiment demonstrates principles related to surface tension, molecular interactions, and fluid dynamics.

Learn more: Magic Milk Experiment

30. Watch the water rise

Learn about Charles’s Law with this simple experiment. As the candle burns, using up oxygen and heating the air in the glass, the water rises as if by magic.

Learn more: Rising Water

31. Learn about capillary action

Kids will be amazed as they watch the colored water move from glass to glass, and you’ll love the easy and inexpensive setup. Gather some water, paper towels, and food coloring to teach the scientific magic of capillary action.

Learn more: Capillary Action

32. Give a balloon a beard

Equally educational and fun, this experiment will teach kids about static electricity using everyday materials. Kids will undoubtedly get a kick out of creating beards on their balloon person!

Learn more: Static Electricity

33. Find your way with a DIY compass

Here’s an old classic that never fails to impress. Magnetize a needle, float it on the water’s surface, and it will always point north.

Learn more: DIY Compass

34. Crush a can using air pressure

Sure, it’s easy to crush a soda can with your bare hands, but what if you could do it without touching it at all? That’s the power of air pressure!

35. Tell time using the sun

While people use clocks or even phones to tell time today, there was a time when a sundial was the best means to do that. Kids will certainly get a kick out of creating their own sundials using everyday materials like cardboard and pencils.

Learn more: Make Your Own Sundial

36. Launch a balloon rocket

Grab balloons, string, straws, and tape, and launch rockets to learn about the laws of motion.

37. Make sparks with steel wool

All you need is steel wool and a 9-volt battery to perform this science demo that’s bound to make their eyes light up! Kids learn about chain reactions, chemical changes, and more.

Learn more: Steel Wool Electricity

38. Levitate a Ping-Pong ball

Kids will get a kick out of this experiment, which is really all about Bernoulli’s principle. You only need plastic bottles, bendy straws, and Ping-Pong balls to make the science magic happen.

39. Whip up a tornado in a bottle

There are plenty of versions of this classic experiment out there, but we love this one because it sparkles! Kids learn about a vortex and what it takes to create one.

Learn more: Tornado in a Bottle

40. Monitor air pressure with a DIY barometer

This simple but effective DIY science project teaches kids about air pressure and meteorology. They’ll have fun tracking and predicting the weather with their very own barometer.

Learn more: DIY Barometer

41. Peer through an ice magnifying glass

Students will certainly get a thrill out of seeing how an everyday object like a piece of ice can be used as a magnifying glass. Be sure to use purified or distilled water since tap water will have impurities in it that will cause distortion.

Learn more: Ice Magnifying Glass

42. String up some sticky ice

Can you lift an ice cube using just a piece of string? This quick experiment teaches you how. Use a little salt to melt the ice and then refreeze the ice with the string attached.

Learn more: Sticky Ice

43. “Flip” a drawing with water

Light refraction causes some really cool effects, and there are multiple easy science experiments you can do with it. This one uses refraction to “flip” a drawing; you can also try the famous “disappearing penny” trick .

Learn more: Light Refraction With Water

44. Color some flowers

We love how simple this project is to re-create since all you’ll need are some white carnations, food coloring, glasses, and water. The end result is just so beautiful!

45. Use glitter to fight germs

Everyone knows that glitter is just like germs—it gets everywhere and is so hard to get rid of! Use that to your advantage and show kids how soap fights glitter and germs.

Learn more: Glitter Germs

46. Re-create the water cycle in a bag

You can do so many easy science experiments with a simple zip-top bag. Fill one partway with water and set it on a sunny windowsill to see how the water evaporates up and eventually “rains” down.

Learn more: Water Cycle

47. Learn about plant transpiration

Your backyard is a terrific place for easy science experiments. Grab a plastic bag and rubber band to learn how plants get rid of excess water they don’t need, a process known as transpiration.

Learn more: Plant Transpiration

48. Clean up an oil spill

Before conducting this experiment, teach your students about engineers who solve environmental problems like oil spills. Then, have your students use provided materials to clean the oil spill from their oceans.

Learn more: Oil Spill

49. Construct a pair of model lungs

Kids get a better understanding of the respiratory system when they build model lungs using a plastic water bottle and some balloons. You can modify the experiment to demonstrate the effects of smoking too.

Learn more: Model Lungs

50. Experiment with limestone rocks

Kids  love to collect rocks, and there are plenty of easy science experiments you can do with them. In this one, pour vinegar over a rock to see if it bubbles. If it does, you’ve found limestone!

Learn more: Limestone Experiments

51. Turn a bottle into a rain gauge

All you need is a plastic bottle, a ruler, and a permanent marker to make your own rain gauge. Monitor your measurements and see how they stack up against meteorology reports in your area.

Learn more: DIY Rain Gauge

52. Build up towel mountains

This clever demonstration helps kids understand how some landforms are created. Use layers of towels to represent rock layers and boxes for continents. Then pu-u-u-sh and see what happens!

Learn more: Towel Mountains

53. Take a play dough core sample

Learn about the layers of the earth by building them out of Play-Doh, then take a core sample with a straw. ( Love Play-Doh? Get more learning ideas here. )

Learn more: Play Dough Core Sampling

54. Project the stars on your ceiling

Use the video lesson in the link below to learn why stars are only visible at night. Then create a DIY star projector to explore the concept hands-on.

Learn more: DIY Star Projector

55. Make it rain

Use shaving cream and food coloring to simulate clouds and rain. This is an easy science experiment little ones will beg to do over and over.

Learn more: Shaving Cream Rain

56. Blow up your fingerprint

This is such a cool (and easy!) way to look at fingerprint patterns. Inflate a balloon a bit, use some ink to put a fingerprint on it, then blow it up big to see your fingerprint in detail.

57. Snack on a DNA model

Twizzlers, gumdrops, and a few toothpicks are all you need to make this super-fun (and yummy!) DNA model.

Learn more: Edible DNA Model

58. Dissect a flower

Take a nature walk and find a flower or two. Then bring them home and take them apart to discover all the different parts of flowers.

59. Craft smartphone speakers

No Bluetooth speaker? No problem! Put together your own from paper cups and toilet paper tubes.

Learn more: Smartphone Speakers

60. Race a balloon-powered car

Kids will be amazed when they learn they can put together this awesome racer using cardboard and bottle-cap wheels. The balloon-powered “engine” is so much fun too.

Learn more: Balloon-Powered Car

61. Build a Ferris wheel

You’ve probably ridden on a Ferris wheel, but can you build one? Stock up on wood craft sticks and find out! Play around with different designs to see which one works best.

Learn more: Craft Stick Ferris Wheel

62. Design a phone stand

There are lots of ways to craft a DIY phone stand, which makes this a perfect creative-thinking STEM challenge.

63. Conduct an egg drop

Put all their engineering skills to the test with an egg drop! Challenge kids to build a container from stuff they find around the house that will protect an egg from a long fall (this is especially fun to do from upper-story windows).

Learn more: Egg Drop Challenge Ideas

64. Engineer a drinking-straw roller coaster

STEM challenges are always a hit with kids. We love this one, which only requires basic supplies like drinking straws.

Learn more: Straw Roller Coaster

65. Build a solar oven

Explore the power of the sun when you build your own solar ovens and use them to cook some yummy treats. This experiment takes a little more time and effort, but the results are always impressive. The link below has complete instructions.

Learn more: Solar Oven

66. Build a Da Vinci bridge

There are plenty of bridge-building experiments out there, but this one is unique. It’s inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s 500-year-old self-supporting wooden bridge. Learn how to build it at the link, and expand your learning by exploring more about Da Vinci himself.

Learn more: Da Vinci Bridge

67. Step through an index card

This is one easy science experiment that never fails to astonish. With carefully placed scissor cuts on an index card, you can make a loop large enough to fit a (small) human body through! Kids will be wowed as they learn about surface area.

68. Stand on a pile of paper cups

Combine physics and engineering and challenge kids to create a paper cup structure that can support their weight. This is a cool project for aspiring architects.

Learn more: Paper Cup Stack

69. Test out parachutes

Gather a variety of materials (try tissues, handkerchiefs, plastic bags, etc.) and see which ones make the best parachutes. You can also find out how they’re affected by windy days or find out which ones work in the rain.

Learn more: Parachute Drop

70. Recycle newspapers into an engineering challenge

It’s amazing how a stack of newspapers can spark such creative engineering. Challenge kids to build a tower, support a book, or even build a chair using only newspaper and tape!

Learn more: Newspaper STEM Challenge

71. Use rubber bands to sound out acoustics

Explore the ways that sound waves are affected by what’s around them using a simple rubber band “guitar.” (Kids absolutely love playing with these!)

Learn more: Rubber Band Guitar

72. Assemble a better umbrella

Challenge students to engineer the best possible umbrella from various household supplies. Encourage them to plan, draw blueprints, and test their creations using the scientific method.

Learn more: Umbrella STEM Challenge

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10 High School Science Lab Experiments - Biology

At its core, biology aims to answer fundamental questions about the nature of life, such as how organisms are composed, how they function and maintain homeostasis, how they grow and reproduce, how they evolve and adapt to their environment, and how they interact with one another and their surroundings. 

High school biologyteachers have so many in-person and virtual lab options for high school lab experiments. We’ve broken them down into five categories:

DNA Experiments

Microscopy experiments, osmosis & diffusion experiments, bacteria experiments , genetics experiments, in-person lab: extracting dna from strawberries.

This activity teaches students about the structure and function of DNA while also demonstrating how DNA can be isolated from cells. Students crush strawberries and use a lysis buffer to break down cell and nuclear membranes, releasing the DNA. The mixture is then filtered, and rubbing alcohol is added to precipitate the DNA, making it visible as a cloudy, stringy substance.

Virtual lab: DNA: Structure and Function

In the narrative of this virtual lab, students will work as an intern for a science magazine, Science Explained. One of the magazine’s readers has written a letter. They’re confused about DNA and have some questions about its structure and function. It’s their job to find out the answers and clear things up. They’ll get to learn how DNA is structured and how DNA’s code translates to functional molecules called proteins.

In-person experiment: Onion cell microscopy

This teaches students about cell structure and function using onion epidermal cells. Students prepare a wet mount slide with a thin layer of onion cells, stain them with iodine, and observe the cells under a microscope. It allows students to visualize plant cell components, such as the cell wall, cell membrane, and nucleus, while gaining experience with microscopy techniques.

Virtual lab: Meiosis, Mitosis and Plant Gametes 

Students will use microscopy to study samples of lily anthers while helping the team at the laboratory. They’ll study the process of cell division and discover the key differences between meiosis and mitosis. 

In-person lab: Diffusion and osmosis with eggs

Students use decalcified eggs (eggs soaked in vinegar to remove the shell) to study the processes of diffusion and osmosis. By immersing the eggs in various solutions, such as distilled water or corn syrup, students can observe changes in mass and size due to the movement of water across the semi-permeable membrane of the egg.

Virtual lab: Osmosis and Diffusion: Choose the right solution for an intravenous drip

In this virtual lab, students will help save Frank’s life by choosing the correct saline solution for an intravenous drip. He’s dehydrated because of sunstroke and needs extra fluids. They’ll join our virtual lab assistant in the lab to discover what a hypotonic, isotonic, and hypertonic solution is and how water is transported across the cell membrane in osmosis.

Photosynthesis Experiments

In-person lab: photosynthesis and respiration in plants.

Students use an aquatic plant, such as Elodea, and a dissolved oxygen probe or a simple inverted test tube setup to measure the rate of oxygen production during photosynthesis and consumption during cellular respiration. This experiment helps students understand the complementary processes of photosynthesis and cellular respiration in plants.

Virtual lab: Photosynthesis: Electron transport chain

To understand how photosynthesis works, students will shrink to a tiny size and go inside the plant cell of a leaf. Travel further inside the cell into the chloroplast, and then look at the thylakoid membrane. The process of photosynthesis takes place here. Observe the different components of the electron transport chain, from the start of the chain at photosystem II to the end of the chain at ATP synthase. 

In-person experiment: Bacterial growth and antibiotic resistance

Students culture bacteria (e.g., E. coli) on agar plates and test the effectiveness of different antibiotics. They observe zones of inhibition, where bacterial growth is prevented, and learn about antibiotic resistance and the importance of proper antibiotic use.

Virtual lab: Gram Stain: How stains and counterstains work

Dive into the microscopic world and discover the colorful magic of the Gram staining procedure! Students will compare and contrast the cell wall of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria by diving into their microscopic samples and observing how the cell wall structures retain certain reagents during the experiment. Discover how the four reagents of the Gram stain interact with structural components of the cell wall to color the bacteria.       

In-person experiment: Monohybrid Cross and Mendelian Genetics

Students observe the results of monohybrid crosses involving a single trait. Using Punnett squares, students predict offspring ratios and compare them with observed outcomes from live organisms, such as pea plants or fruit flies. This activity helps students understand inheritance, dominant and recessive alleles, and how traits are passed from one generation to the next.

Virtual lab: Mendelian Inheritance: From genes to traits

Did you know that more than 99% of your genes are identical to those found in any other human being on the planet? In this simulation, students will learn how Mendel's postulates can be applied to determine how characteristics are inherited by being passed from one generation to the next.

Are you excited by the idea of virtual labs? Check out our catalog of over 300 simulations and our free 30-day all-access educator’s pass. 

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Types of Biology Experiments

What Type of Bean Seeds to Use for a Science Experiment

Biology is the study of life and living organisms, ranging from bacteria to plants to humans. Relevant hands-on biology experiments help improve your understanding and engage you in the learning process and are more enjoyable than memorizing terms from a textbook. Experiments investigate topics such as cell metabolism, genetic inheritance, photosynthesis and bacterial colonization.

Yeast Fermentation

All living cells must convert energy from large nutrients, such as sugar, into cellular energy to fuel processes and synthesize new molecules. While oxygen availability enables efficient cellular energy production, cells can also produce energy without oxygen using glycolysis followed by fermentation. This experiment investigates how different sugar concentration affects the rate of alcoholic fermentation in yeast, which is measured by the depth of the layer of bubbles trapped in foam at the top of the yeast.

Coin Toss Genetics

Children tend to resemble their parents because they inherit genes, segments of DNA molecules that contain instructions for making proteins. Each parent has two versions of a given gene, called alleles, and randomly pass one of these alleles to their offspring. This experiment will use two two-sided coins to simulate gene inheritance from two parents that are heterozygous for the gene, meaning that they both have two different alleles for a given gene. The heads side of the coin represents one allele, whereas the tails side of the coin represents the other allele. Toss both coins four times and record the resulting allele combinations. Repeat these four pairs of coin tosses two or three more times to determine the frequency of the different possible allele combinations.

Photosynthesis

Plants convert light energy into chemical energy in a process called photosynthesis. During this process, plants take up carbon dioxide and let out oxygen. This experiment will determine how the light intensity and color each influence photosynthesis rate, which is assessed by the number of oxygen bubbles produced by the plant. Place waterweed plants in a container with water and baking soda, which provides carbon needed for photosynthesis. Use a simulator, an instrument in which the carbon dioxide availability, light intensity and light color can be adjusted, to assess how each of these factors influence photosynthesis rate.

Bacterial Growth

This experiment cultures bacteria present on different surfaces on an agar plate. Agar is a common growth medium for bacteria because it isn’t eaten by the bacteria growing on it. Use sterile cotton swabs to obtain bacteria samples from various locations such as your desk, the floor, your hair, your unwashed hand and your hand after using an alcohol-based disinfectant. Put each of these samples into individual agar plates, or you can divide a single agar plate into sections if supplies are limited. Observe the bacterial colony shape, size, margin edge, elevation, color and texture over the next several days using a microscope and/or photographs.

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About the Author

Gina Battaglia has written professionally since 2006. She served as an assistant editor for the "International Journal of Sports Medicine" and coauthored a paper published in the "Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research." Battaglia completed a Doctor of Philosophy in bioenergetics and exercise science at East Carolina University and a Master of Science in biokinesiology from the University of Southern California.

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Biology Science Fair Project Ideas

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How to Find Science Project Ideas

Plant project ideas.

• Human Body Project Ideas

Animal Project Ideas

Researching your science project ideas.

• B.A., Biology, Emory University
• A.S., Nursing, Chattahoochee Technical College

Science fair projects give you the opportunity to experience science and biology through hands-on activities . In order to ensure that you have a great biology project, it is important that you first understand biology and the scientific method . Simply put, biology is the study of life. Life is all around us which means that there are enormous possibilities when considering a biology science project. We use the scientific method as a means of studying science and biology. Scientific inquiry starts with an observation followed by the formulation of a question about what has been observed. Then comes designing a scientific experiment to answer the question posed.

So where do you get ideas for biology science fair projects? The answer is from almost anywhere. The key is to start with a question that you would like to find an answer to and use the scientific method  to help you answer it. When choosing a science fair project topic , make sure that you select a topic that you are interested in. Then narrow this topic down to a specific question.

Below you will find science fair project ideas primarily related to biology. Remember that these samples are meant to give direction and ideas. It is important that you do the work yourself and not just copy the material. Also, be sure that you know all of the rules and regulations for your particular science fair before you begin your project.

Plants are important to life as we know it. They provide everything from food, clothing, and shelter to medicine and fuel. Plant projects are popular because plants are abundant, inexpensive, and relatively easy to study during experimentation. These experiments allow you to learn about plant processes and environmental factors that impact plant life.

• Plant-based science projects : Find more than 20 ideas for science fair projects involving plants.
• Soil chemistry : Learn about soil chemistry with these example projects about plant science and the chemical composition of soil.
• Popcorn studies : Enjoy these fun, easy, and interesting experiments with popcorn.

If you have ever wondered how the body works or about all the biological processes that keep the body functioning, then you should consider a science project on the human body. These projects allow you to gain a better knowledge of how the body functions and also provide insight into human behavior.

• Human body projects : If your interest is in biological processes and human behavior, this resource has several ideas for projects on the human body, including the study of the effects of music, temperature, and video games on mood.
• Kids' neuroscience experiments : This is a nice collection of experiments relating to neuroscience. It includes projects dealing with reflexes, the nervous system , biological rhythms, and more.
• Human hair projects : Find several ideas for doing projects about hair. Topics include hair growth rates and hair loss management.

Animal science projects allow us to understand various aspects of animal life. They provide information about animal anatomy, behavior, and even provide insight into human biological processes. Before deciding to do an animal project, be sure that you get permission and avoid animal cruelty. Some science fairs do not allow animal experiments, while others have strict regulations for animal usage.

• Animal projects : Find great ideas for projects involving insects, birds, amphibians, fish, and mammals. Discover how light, pollution, and magnetic fields affect animals.

After you have come up with an idea and topic for your science project, you must research your topic. Research involves finding out everything you can about the scientific principles involved with your project idea. There are several resources available for researching your science fair project. Some of these include your local library, science books and magazines, internet science news sources, and teachers or educators. The most helpful thing that you can do when researching for your project is to take excellent notes.

• Record references for the books and other materials you have used in your research.
• Take notes on simple experiments on which to base your experiment. 
• Keep notes on diagrams used in similar experiments. 
• Record observations from other experiments.
• Keep notes on samples of logs and other means for collecting data. 
• Make lists of materials that you might want to order and their suppliers.

It is important that keep track of all the resources used in your research as these source materials will be required for listing in the bibliography for your science fair project report.

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Five Biology Experiments for College You Need to Try in 2022

Students come to college biology classes with a diversity of prior laboratory experiences and a range of practical laboratory skills. Modern Biology assists instructors in bringing every student to an acceptable level of technique with interesting experiments that reinforce scientific methods and meticulous reporting skills.

Here are five biology experiments for college from Modern Biology that you need to try in 2022.

Forming Hypotheses About DNA

The ability to form and test hypotheses is fundamental to mastering the scientific method. Our Modern Biology experiment  B1-1: Properties of DNA , in which students precipitate strands of DNA from solution with alcohol and manipulate them with glass rods, gives students an opportunity to think outside the box.

This experiment is deceptively simple. After all, it’s also a demonstration activity in middle school. But the ability to look at a simple exercise from a scientific perspective sets the tone for future experiments more clearly on the college level. And the simplicity of this experiment makes it an opportunity to get all the students on the same page regarding laboratory procedures and reports.

Introducing Your Students to Electrophoresis

Electrophoresis is a fundamental investigative tool for college biology. And it’s a topic that college students should feel at home with. After all, they submit samples for electrophoretic testing for COVID-19 on a nearly continuous basis.

For college biology classes, electrophoresis is the basic tool for isolating, visualizing, measuring, characterizing, and comparing DNA, RNA, and other large proteins. Students get the basic lab skills for electrophoresis in Modern Biology’s  Experiment O3: An Introduction to Electrophoresis . Even college students may need experience using a pipette and making sure wells are filled equally. They may need reminders about ensuring that reagents are used at the proper pH and temperatures. And because slight errors in technique can lead to large differences in results, students will have to evaluate their technique to interpret their results.

Capstone Experiments for Life Science Survey Courses

Modern Biology also provides complete kits for capstone experiments for survey courses in biology. These experiments require students to demonstrate university-level skills. They take your students beyond the mere retention of facts and vocabulary to validate their skills in the scientific method and their ability to place science in a social context.

Modern Biology provides a complete kit for studying the  genetics of sickle cell disease  that students use to analyze their own DNA. Instructors then lead the discussion of results to an understanding of the social, economic, and racial barriers to obtaining treatment for sickle cell disease. They can then build on the results of this experiment to carry their survey course experience into other fields of study.

Of course, not every student seeks a social emphasis in their overview of biology. Your students could prefer simply to have fun with biology. For them, you could offer opportunities for building a  bacterial computer to solve the pancake problem  or  genetically modifying a strain of E. coli so it glows in the dark .

Modern Biology transforms college biology instruction from a didactic exercise into an experimental exploration. Every Modern Biology experiment reinforces student abilities to form and test a hypothesis, and to record their process and results in professionally acceptable language and form. 

When you take advantage of the tools of Modern Biology, you can integrate the scientific method into your teaching every day. Modern Biology takes high school and college biology beyond being a merely descriptive course. We provide all the non-toxic, student-safe reagents and test materials you need for every lab exercise, at a price that won’t strain your budget. 

Over 500,000 students learn biology with the help of Modern Biology Inc. products every year. We want to show you why thousands of teachers trust our products. Contact Modern Biology Inc  online or call us at (765) 446-4220 from 9 to 5 Eastern Time weekdays for more information.

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DIY Solar Oven Smores

August 26, 2024 · Karen · 63 Comments

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S’mores are one of my favorite desserts, combine that with my background in science and naturally, I have been dying to make solar oven smores. Solely in the interest of science education of course. 😉 

Easy Solar Oven Smores

It has been CRAZY hot lately, so we took advantage of the scorching sun this past weekend and made the best solar oven. Why is it the best? We already had all the supplies on hand, I love it when a fun plan comes together inexpensively!

Solar Oven DIY

The base of the project was a couple of personal size pizza boxes I saved in my craft stash just for this project. The boys loved making and decorating their own personal solar ovens but a big pizza box would work too.

How to make a solar oven for kids

This project is fairly easy and older kids can do most of the steps themselves. Just have an adult use a craft knife or scissors to cut the solar oven door.

1) Cut the “oven door” flap on the top of the pizza box. The size depends on what you are cooking and how much access you need. Our door was large to maximize our s’mores capacity!

2) Decorate your solar oven with sharpies . This is a fun *optional* step.

DIY Solar Oven For Kids

3) Glue black construction paper  to the bottom of the box. The black color absorbs the heat inside of the box.

4) Glue aluminum foil to the inside of the door. The foil reflects the sun into the oven.

5) Tape the plastic over the opening of the door. This will allow the air inside the box to heat up but keep the heat trapped inside the box.

How to make a solar oven

6) Add a graham cracker, marshmallow, and piece of chocolate inside the oven.

7) Place your oven outside in the sun. I taped a wooden skewer to prop the lid open at an ideal angle.

This project works best on hot summer days. The chocolate naturally started melting quickly.

Our ‘done’ indicator was the marshmallows, we waited until they had puffed up from the heat. It took about 90 minutes to bake our s’mores.

When making these in less extreme temperatures, we just waited until the chocolate melted and called it good enough.

Easy Solar Oven Project

This project was easy, a lot of fun and perfect for preschool through middle school. Older kids could design their own boxes, or conduct scientific experiments by varying factors like the box size, oven door size, construction paper color, cooking time, outside temperature, etc. We talked about what was happening while we waited for the s’mores to bake.

Easy Solar Oven Project Supplies:

• Cardboard pizza box
• Aluminum foil
• Plastic wrap or bag
• Black construction paper
• Pencil or wooden skewer
• Scissors or utility knife
• S’mores supplies: chocolate bar, graham crackers , marshmallows

Then we feasted on our solar oven s’mores, I’m pretty sure everyone can get behind that scientific result. 😉

Your own solar cooker will not get as hot as a conventional oven but it can still be hot enough to need an oven mitt.

STEM Solar Oven Project Discussion Points

• The sun as a heat source
• “A process called nuclear fusion converts hydrogen to helium deep in the sun’s core, where temperatures hit a balmy 18 million degrees Fahrenheit (15.7 million degrees Celsius). Fusion creates energy that travels to the sun’s surface in a journey that lasts a million years. ” Learn more from National Geographic Kids
• We use a sheet of black paper to help absorb the heat. Black absorbs the most heat (white absorbs the least) so any other color would absorb less heat and negatively affect the success of the solar oven.
• The sun’s rays are collected by the reflective panel and concentrated inside the box. This converts the sun’s energy into thermal energy which is how solar ovens work.
• The plastic wrap helps trap the sun’s heat in the pizza box ovens and lessens heat loss.
• Direct sunlight gives the best result, cloudy days will lessen the success of solar cooking.

Books about Solar Power

• The Kids’ Solar Energy Book is recommended for grades 3-7.
• Running on Sunshine: How Does Solar Energy Work? is recommend for preschool through grade 3.
• Solar Energy! How Does It Work? is another science book recommendation.

Have you made a DIY solar oven before?

Post originally published August 15, 2012

More fun learning activities like Solar Oven Smores:

• Pi Day Activities
• Cardboard Box Party
• Jelly Bean Activities

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Ashley @ Mama Of All Trades says

August 16, 2012 at 7:15 am

Seriously, this is genius! I am so going to try this out next week with the kids! Learning and s’mores? Can’t go wrong with that!! Much better than using a flame, too.

Adiah Mayo says

February 16, 2017 at 3:24 pm

I loved making it☺????

February 22, 2017 at 11:23 pm

Sara @ Mom Endeavors says

August 16, 2012 at 7:28 am

Gah–Karen, I LOVE this!!! What a super fab idea in this crazy AZ record heat! This science loving mama will have to do this too! 🙂

August 16, 2012 at 8:00 am

That is the coolest thing I have ever seen for not only making S’mores, but put education into it too, awesome!

Jenny F says

August 16, 2012 at 8:17 am

I had never heard of this! What a great idea! I will tuck this away for next summer, brilliant!!!!

Carrie with Children says

August 16, 2012 at 9:40 am

This is so super cool – I love it! What a fun way to incorporate learning into a fun activity… and even better with yummy Smores!

ericka says

September 20, 2016 at 11:53 am

yep in our class were bout to make smores in our solar oven its going to be cool.

Cassie says

August 16, 2012 at 12:26 pm

This is really cool! I would have never thought about something like this.

August 16, 2012 at 9:06 pm

Food and science equals fun! Great idea!

August 20, 2012 at 8:44 pm

Yum!!! My boys would LOVE this!!!!

Michelle L. says

August 21, 2012 at 6:04 pm

Oh, this is fantastic! And your ‘feasting’ pictures are the cutest. Thanks for a great idea!

chaderz says

June 2, 2017 at 5:41 am

this is so ool dude

August 27, 2012 at 10:41 pm

I used to do this with my 8th graders as a fun inquiry project. We’d change all kinds of variables. Makes me miss those days as teacher…

Jennifer says

May 3, 2013 at 1:16 pm

Visiting from Let’s Hear it For the Boys. I’d like to invite you to my Friday Flash Blog, where you can share your best blog entry of the week! The party goes on ALL weekend. And who knows, you may just get featured next week.

Jennifer thejennyevolution.com

May 21, 2013 at 4:49 pm

Do pizza boxes work well for this? Or are cereal boxes better? My son’s class is doing these soon. Thank you!

May 22, 2013 at 8:37 am

I think cereal boxes would work better. I’d love to hear how they turn out for your son’s class!

July 6, 2017 at 4:43 am

Thanks for letting me know about this I’m gonna do it with the boys and girls club for. science thank you

July 21, 2017 at 7:30 pm

How did you keep ants and flying insects out?

July 22, 2017 at 8:01 pm

We don’t really have a big bug problem here in Arizona, so there was never any problems with that. The plastic wrap does keep anything out that would randomly fly by accidently.

Bella Ward says

March 16, 2018 at 2:57 pm

I’m in 6th grade and my class is doing a “Solar Oven” project. This is perfect for me because we have to build and research about Solar Ovens! Thanks! -Bella Ward 6th Grade California

April 9, 2018 at 9:00 pm

I’m so glad I could help!

May 3, 2018 at 7:04 pm

also try #10 metal can stove

May 11, 2018 at 11:21 am

Hi i’m Isaac and i love this solar cooker its a amazing design

August 6, 2018 at 9:51 am

Worked great- we did jourals to explain the experiment! Sun was 105° needed coffee cups to keep oven from blowing in the wind! Will use cereal box vs pizza box next time.

August 6, 2018 at 9:30 pm

Great idea for next time!

Isabella The Girl Who Didn't Have Science Project Ideas says

April 8, 2019 at 11:00 am

THIS GOT ME AN A

April 8, 2019 at 11:12 am

Awesome! Great job on your project.

seqoia says

June 5, 2019 at 5:17 pm

that looks yummy

Cecelia M Teague says

July 12, 2019 at 11:09 am

I don’t have black construction paper but I do have black paper cake plates (from a 50th birthday party). I’m going to try this with grandsons tomorrow!

July 12, 2019 at 1:36 pm

That sounds like a reasonable substitution. Good luck!

Tacopants Kid says

September 30, 2019 at 10:21 am

This is going to be great! Our STEM class is using many types of solar oven recipes, and this looks perfect!

October 1, 2019 at 7:14 am

So glad I can help!!

E.J Allen says

November 25, 2019 at 11:46 am

This Is awesome. This is my science project

November 26, 2019 at 8:54 am

Glad I can help!

Scarlet says

January 24, 2020 at 7:08 am

What a great idea to cook smores in the solar oven. That makes science is more fun!

March 10, 2020 at 1:50 pm

I’m using this for my 5th grade science fair so I hope it will be good.

March 11, 2020 at 9:57 am

Kitty Mainia says

April 26, 2021 at 1:09 pm

Our class is getting ready to do this. I can’t wait to try it out!

April 29, 2021 at 7:03 pm

June 2, 2021 at 9:28 am

I use this activity as a summer literacy activity. We read a book about solar power and did this activity. The kids enjoyed it. Super fun.

June 2, 2021 at 2:06 pm

That’s a great idea!

Zantaniel Priel says

October 9, 2021 at 1:42 am

Thanks. This’s gonna be awesome.

October 15, 2021 at 10:04 am

October 3, 2022 at 9:25 am

That looks so cool

October 16, 2022 at 8:14 am

Rahil Ahmadi says

October 8, 2022 at 10:11 pm

I loved making this! Super fun and sooooooo educational. It was also a great treat. I liked how the materials were everyday materials. But what else can our kids make with this solar oven?

We haven’t tried anything else but nachos should be easy enough to melt.

March 4, 2023 at 11:14 am

Is there no way to print the directions?

March 17, 2023 at 5:33 pm

You can print the webpage, I’ll consider adding a printable pdf in the future.

Tinley says

April 16, 2023 at 8:54 am

Will the project work in 60 degree weather I am in 4th grade and using this as a science project for my science fair it’s not that hot in Montana right now. P.S. this is a genius idea for any age.

April 17, 2023 at 7:04 pm

I think it would work eventually on a sunny day, it might take a lot longer. But if its for the science fair, you can just test the theory. Good Luck!

May 24, 2023 at 7:51 am

Thank you for this simple and very cool idea. I now have the perfect activity for the end of the year for my science students. This will be a sanity saver for me.

May 24, 2023 at 1:48 pm

So happy I could help!!

Mollie says

August 30, 2023 at 6:45 pm

Hello! Thank you So much for this! I am doing this as my First Ever meeting for a STEM club at my elementary school! Well actually 2 meetings, first meeting they are decorating, then the next week we are makin’ the s’mores!

August 31, 2023 at 3:31 pm

That’s so awesome! You can’t go wrong with s’mores! 🙂

Hi, I’m Karen!

I’m a mom to two boys, Arizona native, and travel lover. Desert Chica is my place to share a peek into our life and the easy and inexpensive costumes, crafts and desserts I like to make. “If I can do it, anyone can!” Learn more about me here

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Diagnostics Explored the ‘Unknowns’ in NIF Ignition Experiments

Achieving ignition on the National Ignition Facility required many diagnostics to probe the optical, x-ray, and nuclear performance of a wide range of inertial confinement fusion implosions and other physics measurements.

Sophisticated diagnostic equipment played a central role in testing the inertial confinement fusion (ICF) models, simulations, and experimental designs used in the National Ignition Facility (NIF) laser shots that led to ignition .  That role was described in a recent Physics of Plasmas paper that traced the evolution and contributions of diagnostics to ICF experiments over the past decade.

In the paper , Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers and their colleagues on the National Diagnostic Working Group show how diagnostics were used to measure the experimental results and explore the “known unknowns” and “unknown unknowns” of the complex physics involved in using lasers to squeeze isotopes of hydrogen atoms until they fuse and trigger a self-sustaining fusion reaction leading to ignition.

In the 1950s, science philosopher Karl Popper famously described experimental falsifiability as a key test of a physical theory. At NIF, data acquired from the continuous improvement of diagnostics was able to falsify early theories for ignition and aid in the development of new theories.

“The proximate role of diagnostics in a mission-driven activity such as ICF is to measure observables in order to falsify or validate theory that is embodied in simulations,” the researchers said.

Improving Theory

“Falsifiability is the root reason we do experiments—to prove theory wrong and suggest how to improve it,” said lead author Joe Kilkenny, vice president for High Energy Density Physics at General Atomics, a partner in the NIF ignition enterprise.

Ignition on NIF occurs when the fusion energy from an ICF implosion exceeds the energy delivered by the lasers to the target (see “ How NIF Works ”). Ignition is an essential aspect of NIF’s primary mission to support the National Nuclear Security Administration’s science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program.

In the Physics of Plasmas paper, the researchers noted that NIF’s early design work recognized that the extreme precision required for ignition would require fine-tuning by using experiments to measure and adjust known unknowns.

Experimental results are used to test codes against the observables; this leads to adjustments to the models or the boundary or initial conditions of the experiments, “such as the beam balance, time history, wavelength difference, or target quality, which hopefully brings models and experiment closer together,” they said. “This process is more appropriately described as micro-falsification, or micro-validation.”

NIF employs more than 100 diagnostics to monitor experimental performance and identify degradation mechanisms and mitigations. A “core” set measures several key theoretical parameters: the shape, or symmetry, of the implosion; the adiabat, or resistance to compression, of the fusion fuel; the implosion’s velocity; and the amount of target capsule material mixing with the fuel.

“Achieving ignition on NIF has required many types of experiments with this core set of diagnostics,” the researchers said, “some constraining known unknowns and some revealing surprises—unknown unknowns.”

Examples of unknown unknowns included the formation of “ice” on the laser entrance hole window, which affected laser burn-in time, and the surprising observation of a significant “drift” velocity of the hotspot at the center of the target capsule in a burning plasma.

Decades of Effort

The researchers noted that LLNL’s success in achieving ignition on NIF, and the development of the diagnostics that were crucial to all phases of getting to ignition, was a multi-decade activity involving hundreds of scientists and engineers from many institutions. The diagnostic effort was coordinated by the National Diagnostic Working Group.

“Over the years,” noted Kilkenny, “we made major improvements in our measurement capability, particularly in x-ray and neutron imaging, allowing us to make the necessary fixes for the degrading factors and guiding us to demonstrate ignition and burn in the laboratory.”  

“This paper underlines the critical contribution of NIF’s diagnostics to the achievement of ignition,” added Andrew MacKinnon, NIF National Diagnostics program leader, “and is a great summary of the decades of effort by the national and international diagnostic community to develop these measurement capabilities for High Energy Density science on NIF.”  

Joining Kilkenny and MacKinnon on the paper were LLNL researchers Art Pak, Nino Landen, Vladimir Smalyuk, Alastair Moore, Nathan Meezan, Steve Haan, Warren Hsing, and Dave Bradley; Steve Batha of Los Alamos National Laboratory; Maria Gatu-Johnson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Sean Regan of the Laboratory for Laser Energetics at the University of Rochester.

More Information:

“ The crucial role of diagnostics in achieving ignition on the National Ignition Facility (NIF) ,” Physics of Plasmas , August 14, 2024

“ A decades-long journey to ignition ,” Scilights , August 16, 2024

“ National Diagnostic Working Group (NDWG) for inertial confinement fusion (ICF)/high-energy density (HED) science: The whole exceeds the sum of its parts ,” Review of Scientific Instruments , August 22, 2023

“ Diagnostics Were Crucial to LLNL’s Historic Ignition Shot ,” NIF & Photon Science News , April 12, 2023

“ NIF Diagnostics Played Key Role in Fusion Milestone ,” NIF & Photon Science News , November 8, 2021

“ Nuclear Diagnostics Help Pave the Way to Ignition on NIF ,” NIF & Photon Science News , March 6, 2020

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A Simple Lab Ingredient Derailed Science Experiments

A scientist in Arkansas couldn’t get her experiments to work. Then others started saying the same thing.

Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

Last year, in July, Reine Protacio’s experiments suddenly stopped working. Every scientist encounters baffling results from time to time; you chalk it up to error, repeat the experiment, and hope for the best. But in this case, the problem didn’t resolve and in fact spread to other members of the lab: Their yeast, which normally multiples with such intense fecundity that 500 colonies might bloom across a single laboratory dish, had become stunted. Now they were getting just two colonies, maybe three—lonely white dots in a sea of nothing. It was as if something was poisoning the yeast.

After two straight months of failed experiments, Protacio went looking for a culprit. Her lab once had a faulty water purifier, so she switched the water source. No difference. She systematically replaced the sugar and other nutrients for growing yeast. No difference. The mystery, she eventually learned, ran deeper and wider than she thought. And when she and her colleagues at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences started sharing her findings, several scientists around the world reported similar stories of ruined experiments. The cases all pointed to the same suspect: agar.

Agar is and has been a staple of microbiology labs for a century. “We buy it in bulk. We buy kilograms at a time,” Protacio told me. Mixed with water, the seaweed-derived white powder forms a sturdy, transparent gel perfect for growing microbes. In my own brief foray into the laboratory as an undergrad, I poured agar into probably hundreds of petri dishes, a tedious but necessary first step for many experiments. The lab where Protacio works uses agar to grow model organisms called fission yeast, whose chromosomes have striking similarities with ours. The bad agar derailed their experiments for two months. Although the lab could recoup the cost of the agar, she said, “they can’t reimburse us for the lost time and the lost productivity.” So the lab started raising the alarm.

In February, Wayne Wahls, who co-leads the lab where Protacio works, wrote to an email list of fission-yeast scientists asking if anyone else had encountered similar problems. One researcher replied yes, and then another. A biologist in Massachusetts even had this agar problem way back in 2006. The more that Wahls, Protacio, and a growing group of other scientists spoke publicly about the problem—in a preprint paper , then an article in Science —the more stories they started to hear. A few of the  scientists joined a study of the agar as collaborators, and the preprint has since been submitted to a journal.

The full pattern of agar failure that emerged is confusing, though. The problems in agar seem to have come and gone not just once but several times, sporadically, over the years—suggesting surprising variability in a standard lab product. They also seem to fade under certain conditions: when petri dishes are kept in the dark, according to one lab, or when yeast are fed a nutrient-rich diet, according to Protacio’s own work. Sunrise Science Products, the company that supplied the seemingly toxic batch to her lab, told me it’s been able to successfully grow fission yeast on the same batch of agar. “Please understand that we are NOT disputing their findings in their experimental situation,” the CEO, Liz Kylin, wrote in an email. Perhaps the problem shows up only in certain batches and under certain conditions, which Sunrise is still trying to understand. “Whatever this issue turns out to be, it is certainly elusive, probably extremely specific,” Kylin wrote.

Scientists have started to wonder if the potential toxicity originated in the seaweed used to make the agar. That could explain the variability from batch to batch: Perhaps certain factors—ecological, meteorological—alter the biochemical makeup of seaweed, the same way a wheat harvest differs from season to season and wine grapes vary from year to year.

Agar is also used in food, particularly in desserts in Asia. (Protacio is from the Philippines, and she originally knew agar as an ingredient in sago at gulaman, a cool, sweet drink that often contains bits of agar jelly.) And laboratory agar actually has its origins in food too: In the 1880s, Fanny Hesse suggested that her microbiologist husband use agar in his work, because she had used it to set fruit and vegetable jellies; her mother had heard about it from friends who had lived in Java. Today, however, culinary and laboratory agar are typically made from different types of seaweed. Agar in food is usually extracted from Gracilaria , which grows readily in large artificial ponds and tanks .

Laboratory agar is a more rarefied product. It comes from Gelidium , a slowly growing wild seaweed that yields a higher-quality agar whose lower gelling temperature is more suitable for lab work. These days, Gelidium is harvested primarily off the coast of Morocco, according to Dennis Seisun and Nesha Zalesny, who run the industry-analysis firm IMR International. The red, frilly seaweed can be collected when it washes ashore, but the finest-quality agar comes from Gelidium gathered from the seabed by professional divers in the summer. “If you can reproduce the waters of Morocco in a pond, the company would do it,” Zalesny told me, but Gelidium has so far resisted attempts at mass cultivation.

The reliance on wild seaweed has caused headaches for labs before. In 2015, a Gelidium shortage caused the wholesale price to nearly triple . But scientists have not, up to this point, been particularly keen to find a replacement for their agar. Seisun and Zalesny used to work for a company that makes gellan gum , an agar alternative that can be manufactured entirely in a factory—no divers needed, no finicky wild seaweed. Yet the product never took off. “Agar still is the king and queen and the gold standard,” Seisun told me. Protacio’s lab ended up switching to a different agar supplier—a cheaper one, actually—and since then everything has been just fine.

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Nuking an asteroid could save Earth from destruction, researchers show in 1st-of-its-kind X-ray experiment

A powerful burst of X-rays from a nuclear explosion could be used to stop Armageddon just in the nick of time, a new experiment suggests.

A nuclear bomb could save Earth from a catastrophic asteroid impact, according to a first-of-its-kind lab study.

The new experiment, conducted using the world's most powerful laboratory radiation source, demonstrated that detonating a coordinated nuclear strike close to an asteroid would produce enough force to deflect it from a fatal collision with our planet. 

Yet the explosion wouldn't be doing the heavy-lifting. Rather the powerful burst of X-rays made by the blast, according to the team that operates the Z machine radiation source at Sandia National Laboratory. The researchers published their findings Sept. 23 in the journal Nature .

"To most people, the danger from asteroids seems remote," lead author Nathan Moore , a physicist at Sandia National Laboratories, said in a statement . "But our planet is hit by BB-sized asteroids every day. We call them shooting stars. We don't want to wait for a large asteroid to show up and then scramble for the right method to deflect it."

In 2023, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences published a report arguing that planetary defense is a national priority. Previous simulations have shown that the shockwave made by a nuclear bomb could provide enough force to successfully deflect an oncoming asteroid . But the asteroids that were harmlessly deflected in these scenarios were ones spotted decades in advance. Asteroids appearing just several years away from Earth were deemed too close to nudge away without sending dangerous fragments hurtling to Earth. 

Related: NASA's asteroid-deflection mission is a smashing success, shortens space rock's orbit by a stunning 32 minutes

More troubling still, an ongoing NASA sky survey has estimated that roughly 25,000 objects big enough to cause significant destruction lurk near Earth. And because many of these are hidden by the sun's glare , only one-third of the potentially hazardous asteroids have been identified. 

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To investigate how nukes could avert armageddon, the researchers behind the new study placed  a tenth of a gram of asteroid-like silica on a piece of ultra-thin foil inside Sandia's Z machine. 

After the Z machine fired, it generated magnetic fields that compressed argon gas inside into a plasma as hot as the sun . This instantly disintegrated the foil, producing a burst of X-rays that left the coffee-bean-sized silica nugget floating in the air for roughly 20 millionths of a second.

— What happened when the dinosaur-killing asteroid slammed into Earth?

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"It was a novel idea," Moore said. "A mock asteroid is suspended in space. For a one-nanometer fall, we can ignore Earth's gravity for 20 millionths of a second as Z produces a burst of X-rays that sweeps over the mock-asteroid surface 12.5 millimeters across, about the width of a finger. The trick is to use just enough force to redirect the flying rock without splitting it into several equally deadly subsections advancing toward Earth."

Having confirmed that their experimental setup works, the researchers will use it to create a database of potential impact and deflection scenarios, based on a library of hypothetical asteroids that could be consulted before a real collision. 

And space agencies around the world are already working on possible ways to deflect asteroids with longer warning times. On Nov. 24, 2021, NASA launched its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, which successfully redirected the non-hazardous asteroid Dimorphos by ramming it off course in autumn 2022, and creating the first ever human-made meteor shower. China is also in the early planning stages of an asteroid-redirect mission. By slamming 23 Long March 5 rockets into the asteroid Bennu, the country hopes to divert the space rock from a potentially catastrophic impact with Earth .

Ben Turner is a U.K. based staff writer at Live Science. He covers physics and astronomy, among other topics like tech and climate change. He graduated from University College London with a degree in particle physics before training as a journalist. When he's not writing, Ben enjoys reading literature, playing the guitar and embarrassing himself with chess.

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The synthesis of heavy elements in stars is one of the main puzzles of nuclear astrophysics. Scientists recently introduced a new stellar process, the intermediate “i" process, to explain new astronomical observations. Researchers need accurate nuclear input to identify the stellar site of the i-process. Scientists have now reported on the measurement of a nuclear reaction that affects the production of lanthanum in the i-process. The researchers have shown that the proposed i-process conditions are viable and can explain astronomical observations.

The new measurement helps to set constraints for the conditions of the i-process. Scientists currently have limited knowledge of how much heavy element synthesis is the result of this process. The recent result, together with future measurements, can help create a more accurate picture of nucleosynthesis. Studies like this will help scientists finally answer the question of how the elements form in stars.

The so-called “intermediate process” or “i-process” is a new nucleosynthesis process that scientists have introduced to explain recent astronomical observations. Now, scientists at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams ( FRIB ), a Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science user facility, have presented the measurement of a nuclear reaction that helps to constrain the astrophysical conditions for the i-process. The experiment was conducted at the Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System ( ATLAS ), a DOE particle accelerator user facility at Argonne National Laboratory. The experiment used beams produced by the CARIBU facility of ATLAS, and the main device used was the FRIB SuN detector developed at Michigan State University.

The research found that observations of the element lanthanum, when combined with observations of other elements like barium and europium, are sensitive to the i-process conditions. However, the large nuclear physics uncertainties do not allow researchers to describe the exact conditions and identify the site of the i-process. To help address the uncertainties, particularly for the production of lanthanum, the researchers studied the ability of the barium-139 nucleus to capture neutrons in the stellar environment. With the new constraints, scientists can confirm the neutron density required for an i-process. They can also confirm that rapidly accreting white dwarf stars are a viable site for the i-process.

Artemis Spyrou Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, Michigan State University [email protected]   Guy Savard Argonne National Laboratory [email protected]

This material is based on work supported by the Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Science, the National Nuclear Security Administration, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Research Council of Norway, the National Research Foundation of South Africa, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. The SuN detector was developed with funding from the National Science Foundation.

Publications

Spyrou, A., et al ., First study of the 139 Ba(n,γ) 140 Ba reaction to constrain the conditions for the astrophysical i process . Physical Review Letters 132 , 202731 (2024). [DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.202701]

Related Links

Physics magazine research news: Lanthanum Less Abundant Than Previously Thought

FRIB news: Investigating the conditions for a new stellar process