The fifth grade is a great year to enter a science fair. This is the last year before you enter middle school, which means you will be at the top of your age category. This can be a great advantage when it comes to judging and project development. To get you started please find below two sample 5th grade science fair projects. You can use these projects as a jumping off point or as a guide to developing your own project.
Animal Adaptations – Flamingos
In this science fair project you will be exploring the adaptations of the flamingo. To complete this project you will first want to research the flamingo. You will need to identify the physical adaptations that allow flamingos to survive in brine pools (salt water).
HYPOTHESIS: The shape of the flamingo’s beak helps to strain out inedible particles without losing brine shrimp.
EXPERIMENT: To test this hypothesis you will first need to develop a test flamingo beak. This beak will be constructed so that it is the same size and shape of a real flamingo beak. You will then test the function of the beak at filter brine shrimp from a solution of salt water, sand particles and brine shrimp.
DATA: When you collect data you will need to dip the test beak in the solution and dump the contents into a Petri dish for examination using the same motion as flamingos use. You will then examine the Petri dish under a microscope. You will want to count the particles of sand and the number of brine shrimp found in each scoop. Your analysis will determine if the beak filters out the sand or not.
Animal Adaptations – Beak Shape and Function
In this 5th grade science fair project you will be looking at how the shape of a bird’s beak related to what the bird eats. For this project you will need to research various types of birds and various types of beak designs. You will also need modeling tools and materials to create test beaks.
HYPOTHESIS: The shape of a seed eater’s beak can be used to create a more effective nut cracker.
EXPERIMENT: To test this hypothesis you will need to create models of various seed eaters’ beaks. You can make test beaks out of various materials including wood, ceramics and metal. To test the hypothesis you will see if the test beaks allow you to more easily remove the shells from various types of seeds like sunflower seeds, almonds and walnuts.
DATA: The data that you collect will be observations about how the beaks split the seed and how much force is used to split the seed or nut using the test beak. The analysis portion of your project will compare the amount of force used to split a seed using the test beak and the amount of force used to split the same type of seed using a modern nutcracker.
