Science fairs are a fantastic way of introducing the scientific method to kids and getting them excited about doing science! The goal of a science fair project is to pick a question, develop a hypothesis, experiment, and draw conclusions from the data that support or don't support the original hypothesis. A perfect way to put science in action! My 8 year old was old enough to enter her school's science fair for the first time this year. Prior to the start of the year I sat down with her and we brainstormed some different experiment ideas. After some careful consideration she decided to test the strength of various types of tape on different surfaces. A great starter project for her first science fair.
Testing the Strength of Tape
She found five different types of tape around the house: duct tape, masking tape, scotch tape, packing tape, and T-Rex tape. I helped her set up a simple experiment in which she stuck a piece of string to a material using a piece of tape. She next hung weights from the string until it ripped away from the tape. The amount of weight the string held was an indicator of the strength of the tape.
She hypothesized the duct tape would be the strongest because it felt stickier, a very reasonable observation. Each attempt was repeated three times for each of the three types of tape and then repeated for dry wood, wet wood, dry metal, and wet metal for the surface. Duct tape was the strongest for three of the materials, but she was surprised to find duct tape would not stick at all to wet wood. Scotch tape actually did a better job sticking to wet wood than any of the other types of tape.
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| Setup used to measure tape strength. |
My daughter worked hard on her project, both with the experimentation, poster construction, and preparation to explain to the judges. Science is much more than experimentation. Good scientists are great communicators. After the judging we found out later in the evening at the public science fair night at the school that she earned first place among all third grade projects and third place among all 3rd/4th/5th grade projects! She was super excited and had a ton of fun with her first science fair project.
It's not over yet though. Her first place finish earned her a spot in the regional science fair that is coming up. So more to come!
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