Science fair projects for 2nd grade

What to expect

Second graders can use a ruler and count past a hundred, so their projects can measure: how far a car rolls, how many pennies a bridge holds, how many minutes an ice cube lasts. The step up from 1st grade is the results table. Levels go down the side, tries go across, and the child fills in the numbers themselves, even if the writing is wobbly.

Keep it to one sitting where you can. A 2nd grader's attention is the real limit, and a project that's done in an hour gets finished. The If… then… because… frame works well at this age if a grown-up reads it aloud: "If I make the ramp higher, then the car will go…" and let them finish it. The because is the hard part, and a guess is a perfectly good because.

Counted from the projects on this page: 15 about how things move, 20 about water, ice and mixing, 15 about growing and weather; 23 using kitchen things, 15 using paper, tape and toys, 12 using the outdoors and some seeds. 35 are free with what most houses have, and the rest cost about $3 or about $2 or about $1. Testing takes from 1 to 14 days. 7 have a step a grown-up does, marked on the page.