🧭 How to pick a science fair project your child can finish

1. What grade are they in?

Start with the grade, not the age, because what a fair expects climbs with it. A 1st grader counts and draws. A 4th grader measures in centimetres and works out the mean, which is the average of the tries. A 7th grader tests a second thing as well. Every project here says which grades it fits.

• 🐣 1st–3rd: 82 projects fit.
• 🦊 4th–6th: 108 projects fit.
• 🦉 7th and up: 67 projects fit.

Each grade has its own page with the projects that fit: kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, middle school and high school. If your child sits between two boxes, pick the younger one. A project done well beats a hard one done halfway.

2. How many days until the fair?

Count the days on the calendar, then take away three: one to gather things and print the sheets, one to write it up and one to make the board. What's left is the time for testing.

• 🗓️ This weekend, two days or less: 94 of the 118 projects fit.
• 📅 About a week, up to seven days: 105 of the 118 projects fit.
• 📆 Two weeks or more, plenty of time: every project fits.

Anything that grows, like beans or crystals, needs days you can't hurry. If the fair is this weekend, pick something that tests in one sitting. If you have two weeks, a growing project fills the logbook almost by itself.

3. What's already in the house?

Nothing here needs a trip to the shops. 80 of the 118 projects cost nothing at all, and none costs more than about $4. Each one lives on one of three shelves:

• 🧂 Kitchen things: 48 projects. Salt, sugar, ice, vinegar, cups and spoons: the kitchen is a lab.
• ✂️ Paper, tape and toys: 41 projects. Paper, card, string, a toy car and a ball: the junk drawer is a lab.
• 🌱 Outside and plants: 29 projects. A windowsill, a sunny step, a cup of soil: outside is a lab.

Look in the cupboard together before you choose. A project you can start tonight is a project that gets done.

4. What do they like?

This is the question that keeps a child going on day three, so let them answer it. A child who loves toy cars will stick with a ramp far longer than with a plant they didn't choose.

• 🚗 How things move: ramps, planes, parachutes and bounces (44 projects).
• 🧪 Water, ice and mixing: fizz, melt, dissolve and soak (38 projects).
• 🌦️ Growing and weather: seeds, light, sun and shadow (36 projects).

If they can't decide, that's fine. Any of the three makes a good first project.

Let the picker do the sums

Pick my project asks these four questions, three big boxes each, and hands back one project with its question, its steps and every sheet the fair asks for. If it isn't right, tap Another one. Short on time? The easy projects all test in one sitting and start by 3rd grade.

One last thing. A small project, finished and tested three times, is better than a big idea that never got tested. A judge can only score what's on the board.