Recommended for elementary school students! Science fair topics & craft ideas
Speaking of summer vacation, choosing a topic for the independent research project can often be tough.
Science experiments and crafts are both fun! If your child is good at crafts, we recommend crafts because they can enjoy the process as they go.
When they get absorbed in it, they might even finish in just a few days.
Here, we’ll introduce a variety of ideas for independent research and crafts! If you’re struggling to pick a theme, please use these as a reference.
To create fun summer memories, make a one-of-a-kind project of your own!
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- Recommended for lower elementary school students! A collection of plastic bottle craft ideas made with everyday materials.
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- [Middle School Students] Easy One-Day Science Projects and Crafts Ideas
- Toys you can make from cardboard crafts! Authentic ideas you can build and play with
- Simple but awesome! Craft ideas for upper-grade girls
- Crafts parents and kids can enjoy together. Recommended craft ideas to keep children entertained.
For upper grades (21–30)
Let’s make a levitating top
This is an experiment to try making a mysterious spinning top that keeps rotating while floating in midair.
Since it uses magnetic repulsion, it’s important to prepare strong circular magnets of different sizes.
As explained in the video, you need perseverance and a willingness to keep trying—finding the sweet spot for the base magnet’s strength and adjusting the weight of the small top.
Because it’s an experiment that requires repeated attempts to reach completion, it should also be one that gives you a sense of accomplishment.
Even grade-schoolers can make it! Triple-shot chopstick rubber band gun
You might think it’s just a simple chopstick rubber band gun, but it actually has a feature that lets you fire three rubber bands.
The building process is straightforward: attach a handle to a bundle of chopsticks that serves as the base, then install a movable trigger so that it’s sandwiched in place.
What’s crucial here are the trigger shape and the positions where the rubber bands are hooked.
By attaching three rubber bands at different positions, they will fire in sequence.
The hooking method for each band is also intricate, so doing that accurately is a key point.
For upper grades (31–40)
Making a PythagoraSwitch-style Rube Goldberg machine
The PythagoraSwitch contraptions, famous from NHK E-TV’s popular show “PythagoraSwitch,” are well known.
Building a full-fledged version like the ones on TV is tough, and even making just a part of one often doesn’t work out.
However, if you record how it failed and what you changed to make it succeed, it could become a high-level independent research project.
It’s quite deep—for example, when it rains, humidity can change how a marble rolls.
I looked into the structure of the instrument.
How about a study that explains the structures of familiar instruments—such as the piano, organ, and recorder—along with diagrams? By investigating instruments commonly found in schools, you can also expect to spark interest in music itself.
The piano’s mechanism is surprisingly simple, so it’s a recommended choice.
Composing music with GarageBand
A very modern independent research project that would have been unimaginable ten years ago.
If you have an iPhone or a Mac at home, it should include an app called GarageBand, which lets you compose music.
To be honest, it’s a high-level project with a fairly high bar, but for kids who love music, it could be a very rewarding study, don’t you think?
Let’s extract DNA
The human body is made up of cells, and it’s said there are as many as 60 trillion of them.
Inside each cell is a nucleus, inside the nucleus are chromosomes, and what makes up those chromosomes is DNA.
While pursuing the details can get complicated, this is a simple experiment to extract DNA from cells.
All you need is orange juice and absolute ethanol.
Slowly pour the absolute ethanol so it doesn’t mix with the orange juice; after a while, the DNA will rise to the surface.
Try touching the extracted DNA, drying it, and experimenting with it in various ways.
Fun-to-shake shaker
Here’s a fun shaker made from a plastic wrap core.
Use origami made of film.
Wrap double-sided tape around the core and seal one end with the origami.
From the other side, add beads or similar fillings and seal it the same way with origami.
Wrap washi tape around it, then cut the origami into strips and wrap them on.
Add googly-eye stickers and a mouth to finish! It’s fun to dance with to music, too.
Little kids will enjoy it, so be sure to make it together and have a great time!
