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Quick Science Fair Projects Might Mean Make Your Own Commercial!

You can prove a commercial right or wrong and then turn it into fun, quick science fair projects

A lot of us grew up with the Bounty commercial and the actress Nancy Walker telling us about the quicker picker upper.  Now I may have mixed up my commercials, I tend to mix my metaphors, but you get the idea. We see these commercials all the time telling us that one brand does a better job than another. Nowadays we even see love affairs between dust mytes and the dust rags, or the love lorn mop who has been tossed aside.

Here is a quick science fair project with paper towels You could turn it into dust rags or mops. Hmm.. does the Swiffer really pick up better than a sponge mop? But we will use towels. You could test strength, how well it cleans, ( test for bacteria left behind), absorbency, or how long they last before they fall apart. Lot of choices.

For this example we will stick with how well different paper towels absorb, it can be called “The quicker picker upper experiment.” This is one that would work really well with a small group of kids.

Start with Three to Four different brands of paper towels, including a generic or store brands.

• Get three or four matching dinner plates and fill them three fourths of the plate with water. Be sure it is the exact same amount on each plate.
• Pull off several sheets off of each roll. You make have to cut some off to be sure they are the exact same width and length.
• One at a time, place the towel on the plate and start a timer. Or write down the exact time you put it down. You will need a stop watch or a clock with a second hand. Dip the tissue pieces separately in each plate containing water and note the time you put it down.
• When all the water is absorbed, mark the time down again.
• Which ever paper towel that absorbs the fastest his the quicker picker upper.
• As with most experiment three trials should be used.
• I would repeat the whole thing with a double layer and triple layer of towels. It might be fun to do it with a crunched up towel, they way we tend to use them to see if that makes a difference
• Once you have your results you can come up with a conclusion and as to which one (s) are the the most absorbent.
• BE sure to state that based on THIS experiment, you conclude that the most absorbent is ____. You don’t want to come across as advertising.

When using a small group of kids with one of these kinds of science projects for  elementary students it might be fun to write a “quicker picker upper” commercial of your own. You will have to be very careful as with brand names there are legal issues, so unless you know a copyright lawyer, I would leave it off of You Tube! But you could definitely act it out and make a pretty fun commercial. Kids love to have this kind of thing as the carrot at the end of the tunnel to motivate them with a project.

Once you do this you will notice all sorts of commercials you could use for a quick and easy science project to test out if there really is a difference between brands and generic.

Grab some more quick science fair projects today, by visiting 24 Hour Science Projects.

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