I Need Ideas For My Science Project. It Has To Be A Model, Not An Experiment. Can You Help?

Without knowing what grade you’re in at school, it’s hard to know what kind of science project would be appropriate.

I’ll try to vary the difficulty of my suggestions - hopefully, one of them will suit your needs!

A Home-Made Stethoscope
This one’s quite easy - it only takes about fifteen minutes. Here’s what you’ll need:

• A piece of garden hose
• Two funnels
• Modeling clay, Blu-tac or strong sticky-tape

What to do:

1. Attach a funnel to each end of the garden hose, using whatever the clay, Blu-tac or Sellotape.
2. One funnel goes against your ear, and the other goes against somebody’s heart. This is supposed to work like a stethoscope, and amplify the sound of the heartbeat.
3. Get somebody to run around, and measure their heart-beat when they stop.
4. Do the same to someone who's been resting, and compare.

A Tissue-Box Guitar
You’ll need:

• A tissue box
• Several rubber bands (one for each guitar string)
• Thumb-tacks
• A piece of thick card or wood

What to do:

1. Attach the tissue box to the card or wood to make a guitar shape.
2. Cut the rubber bands, and stick a thumb-tack through the end of each one. Secure them each to the tissue box, as if they were guitar strings.
3. Pin the other end of each rubber band (you’ll need to stretch them) to the ‘guitar neck’.
4. Ping them, and the sound will echo in the tissue box, much like an acoustic guitar.

A Model Heart
Okay, this one’s more difficult to do accurately, but it’ll be more fun - it’s an excuse to buy candy! Here’s what you’ll need:

• Modelling clay or Plasticine (brown or beige)
• Twizzlers (thick) and candy laces (thin) in blue and red

What to do:

1. All you really need to do for this one is find an anatomical drawing of a heart, and then recreate it using candy and Plasticine.
2. If there’s any left over, feel free to have a snack when you're done (on the candy, not the modelling clay!)