Steve McCombs, Ft. Most elementary students do not have a good grasp of the scientific method or how to set-up an experiment, collect data, test a hypothesis, or organize the information after an experiment.
Children can do real science by asking simple 'what it questions' that can be tested.
We eat a lot of popcorn and friends often give us special types of seeds to try. Using one hundred seeds of six types of popcorn and a hot air popper he tested the seeds and graphed the results. The experiment was written up and used in his school science fair. The best part of the experiment was its simple uniqueness. It tested an idea and was not a copy from a book of experiments already tried.