Recommended for middle school students! A collection of quick science project ideas you can do in a short time.
Are you struggling to choose a topic for your middle school independent research project? In fact, with a small twist, you can easily do interesting experiments using everyday items like smartphones, mouthwash, and even bread! In this article, we’ll share tips for independent research—from original ideas to classic experiments—that will make everyone say “Wow!” All of these experiments let you experience the wonders of science, such as programming and chromatography.
Through your summer vacation project, you’re sure to make exciting new discoveries!
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Recommended for junior high school students! A collection of quick-and-easy independent research project ideas (11–20)
Trying to refine salt from seawater
How about trying to make salt from seawater? If you bring some seawater back when you go to the beach during summer vacation, it’s easy! All you have to do is strain the seawater with a coffee filter and then boil it down.
Little by little, the water will evaporate and you’ll be left with just the salt.
It could also be interesting to record how much salt you can produce from a certain amount of seawater and calculate the salinity from that! If you put the steps together in a notebook with photos and compile the data, it would make a perfect independent research project!
Making insect repellent spray
When playing outside in the summer, insect repellent spray is just as important as sunscreen.
It’s an essential item to avoid discomfort later! Here, we’re introducing a DIY insect repellent spray you can make with just three ingredients.
It only takes about 10 minutes to make, so it’s an easy science project even for lower elementary grades.
The ingredients are peppermint oil, water, and rubbing alcohol (ethanol).
Put the peppermint oil and ethanol into a container and shake well to mix.
Then add the water and shake again in the same way, and you’re done! Please summarize the steps and key points, such as the order in which to add the ingredients, when you write it up.
Paper chromatography
Paper chromatography is a method of separating substances using paper.
There are various approaches, but it’s perfect for a simple science project because you can easily try it with just a coffee filter and water-based markers.
The procedure is to mark the coffee filter with a water-based marker, then place the filter in water.
The filter will gradually draw up the water, and the ink from the marker will separate.
For example, black marker ink is made by mixing multiple colors, and with paper chromatography you can separate those mixed inks.
Try different colors, and see whether you can separate substances other than water-based markers as well.
Hydrostatic Pressure Experiment
The underwater world is full of wonders, isn’t it? Here’s an experiment that focuses on water pressure.
If you’ve ever swum in a pool, you may have noticed that the pressure you feel on your body is different when you’re doing the crawl or breaststroke at the surface compared to when you’re diving deeper down.
To make this visible, let’s try an experiment using a plastic bottle.
If this much changes over just a few meters, then the water pressure at seafloor depths of hundreds of meters must be beyond imagination.
Comparison of tin can telephones made with various materials
Have you ever made a cup-and-string telephone? These days everyone has a cell phone, so you might not need a string phone, but it makes a great experiment for studying how sound is transmitted—so give it a try.
This time, instead of just making a string phone, we’ll run an experiment by swapping the connecting string for various materials and observing the differences.
It’s really interesting how the sound changes depending on the thickness and material.
It’s also a good idea to investigate why the way it sounds changes.
Water Quality Survey
Water is all around us in our daily lives, but it’s hard to tell which water is clean and which is dirty.
In such cases, using a water quality testing kit makes it easy to see how contaminated the water is.
Try collecting water from as many different places as possible and test their quality.
Even if the results show the water is cleaner than you expected, it’s not recommended to drink it directly, though it might be useful in emergencies.
By the way, it seems that water containing detergent will show up as contaminated.
Recommended for junior high school students! A collection of quick independent research project ideas (21–30)
Homemade compost: making fertilizer from kitchen scraps
Compost is what you get when kitchen scraps and fallen leaves from the home are broken down and fermented using the power of fungi and microorganisms to become fertilizer.
It takes some time to turn into fertilizer, so it’s a perfect theme to work on during a long break like summer vacation.
This experiment, which lets you easily make compost using a cardboard box, is excellent from an ecological standpoint, so it’s great to keep as an ongoing habit even after the experiment.
It’s also recommended to use the finished compost in your home garden.