If you have school-aged children, chances are at some point they are going to come home with an assignment to complete a science fair project.  If you’re lucky, the teacher may assign a specific project or at least share some ideas.  If you’re not so lucky, we’ve got three easy science projects that can be quickly and easily completed with minimal supplies in just a few hours.

Test Assured makes a great science fair kit that can be used to test water samples and a variety of liquids.  Students can complete these three projects with the 4-Pack Kit for Schools and Science Fairs.  Each project will give you a variety of results that can be turned into displays and graphs.

What’s in Your Vegetable Water

Have you ever wondered what’s left behind in the water after you boil vegetables? This project tests the water that is left behind after boiling several different vegetables.  You’ll need to gather up a few supplies for this project including a water testing kit, assorted vegetables, a pot, and paper towels to clean up any spills.  Boil each vegetable separately for approximately five minutes and collect the cooking water for your samples.  Don’t forget to test a control sample of plain water for comparison.

How Does Adding Milk and Sugar Change a Cup of Tea

Tea is a popular beverage any time of day. Some people drink it plain, while others add milk and some prefer sugar. Milk and sugar certainly change the way a cup of tea tastes, but did you ever consider how it may change the composition of what started out as plain water?  In this project, you’ll find out what properties of water are changed when you make tea and add sugar and milk.  You will need a water testing kit, but you probably have the rest of the supplies on hand for this project: hot water, mugs, tea bags, sugar, milk, and paper towels.  The four samples you will test include a control sample of the hot water, plain tea, tea with sugar, and tea with milk.

Whose Mouth is Cleaner

This is a fun project for people who have pets. People often say that a dog’s mouth is cleaner than a human’s, so let’s put that theory to the test.  Supplies for this experiment are minimal, all you need is a water testing kit, water samples, and paper towels to keep your test area clean and dry.  Make sure that one of your samples is a control sample of plain tap water.  Then get creative and gather the rest of your samples.  You can use water from a dog or cat bowl, a fish bowl, or even a hamster bottle.  For samples that have been in contact with a human, you can get water from a public fountain, take a sample from a glass that someone drank out of, or swoosh some water in your mouth to test.

No matter what age your child is you can build on these basic projects for kids in grades three through twelve.  Older kids can perform additional tests and increase the numbers of samples tested. Not only are water test experiments fun and educational, but they also require minimal supplies and produce quality scientific results.