UCLA Science Fair Project Ideas: Sparking Curiosity and Innovation

UCLA has a rich tradition of fostering scientific curiosity and innovation, particularly through its science fair projects and outreach programs. These initiatives aim to engage students of all ages and backgrounds in hands-on learning experiences, inspiring the next generation of scientists and promoting a deeper understanding of the world around us.

Exploring Your Universe (EYU): A Cornerstone of Science Outreach

Exploring Your Universe (EYU) stands out as a major annual event, typically held on the first Sunday of November. This free science fair welcomes thousands of children, parents, and community members to the UCLA campus. Organized by UCLA graduate students and run by volunteers, EYU provides a day of free science education through interactive science booths, talks, and demonstrations.

The goal of EYU is to share science with a broader audience through hands-on learning and inspire the next generation of scientists. Traditionally held at UCLA’s Court of Sciences, it welcomes thousands of visitors from the LA community and has become the largest science outreach event on campus.

EYU offers activities for ages K-12 and beyond, including interactive booths with experiments to do at home, guided virtual science demonstrations, science talks, and "Ask a Scientist" Q&As.

The Importance of Public Funding for Science

The theme of one year's fair was “funded by you through,” highlighting the role that taxpayers play in funding public science organizations. Scientific research lengthens lifespans and has given us the internet. It is crucial that the public understands that this is an effort to do what’s good for everybody.

Engaging Undergraduates in Space Science: The ELFIN Project

Five years ago, a group of UCLA undergrads came together with a common goal: to build a small satellite and launch it into space. Although UCLA has been building space instruments for NASA and other international space missions for more than 40 years, and members of its faculty have been critical contributors to space science, ELFIN is the first satellite mission built, managed and operated entirely at UCLA.

The two micro-satellites, each weighing about eight pounds and roughly the size of a loaf of bread, will help scientists better understand magnetic storms in near-Earth space. These storms are a typical form of “space weather” that is induced by solar activity, including flares and violent solar eruptions.

Understanding Magnetic Storms and Space Weather

Magnetic storms are not just interesting space phenomena. They can energize electrons to high energies that can damage or even destroy orbiting satellites we depend on for GPS, communications and weather monitoring. They can also enhance space electrical currents which flow onto Earth, and could damage the power grid. Currently, scientists’ ability to accurately model and predict space weather is in its infancy, just like meteorology was at the turn of the last century.

The ELFIN Mission and Student Involvement

ELFIN will go up as a secondary payload with the ICESat-2 mission at dawn on Saturday, Sept. 15, aboard the trusted Delta II, the final and hopefully 100th consecutive successful launch of this type of rocket. Following the launch, many ELFINers at Vandenberg will come back to the campus command center to eagerly await the first Bruin transmissions from space, which are expected about 10 hours after blast-off.

UCLA students will be directly involved in day-to-day mission activities and will have privileged access to ELFIN’s data. They will track and command the satellite via a custom-built antenna atop Knudsen Hall and will download data directly to the mission operations center located in the Earth, planetary and space sciences department.

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The Educational Impact of ELFIN

Ethan Tsai learned about ELFIN when he was a UCLA sophomore. Despite having no background in space science, the former physics major started to work on simple tasks and gained the necessary skills to become the project’s attitude determination and control subsystem lead. He never imagined being involved in a NASA mission as an undergraduate.

ELFIN aims to observe the complex sequence whereby magnetic storms form waves near Earth, accelerating and forcing electrons to fall into the atmosphere, while a network of all-sky cameras across North America captures the resulting brightening of the auroral lights.

CubeSats fill this need because of their compact size, relative affordability ($300,000 compared to several hundred million dollars for a typical research satellite), and how quickly a team can go from prototyping to launch compared to standard-sized satellites.

For ELFINers, being part of an endeavor of this magnitude is reward enough, but working on this project also has professional and scientific benefits. As a researcher it’s important to not just analyze data that others collect, but to be involved in designing your own unique experiments to explore new key science questions.

CubeSats are ideal because they create an environment where students from all walks of life, from all disciplines, can come together and practice what they’ve learned during their formal education in the context of a realistic environment. This is exactly what academia, industry and research organizations around the country need.

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Community Service Commission (CSC) Projects: Extending Science Education

CSC’s education projects provide mentorship and academic support to a variety of learners. While some projects focus on K-12 education, others serve adult learners and their communities.

Examples of CSC Projects

Amigos de UCLA: Established in 1962, Amigos focuses on achieving educational enrichment and equity in Arlington Heights, an under-resourced community in mid-city LA.
PREP: Encourages students to pursue higher education, promote community consciousness, increase cultural awareness and foster leadership skills. PREP engages students in artistic activities to motivate and inspire and hosts Day In A Life (DIAL) workshops by UCLA volunteers.
Project Bruins Reforming Incarceration Through Education (BRITE): Explicitly addresses and combats mass incarceration, an issue that drastically impacts communities in the Los Angeles area. The goal is not to provide a temporary band-aid for a larger issue while reinforcing power inequalities that create a need for service.
Asian American Tutorial Project: An all-student run joint tutoring organization between USC, UCLA, and Occidental.
Project Literacy: Works to reduce the prevalence of illiteracy in Los Angeles through weekly, one-on-one, individualized mentorship and tutoring.
Bruin Animal Rescue Coalition (BARC): A group dedicated to helping animals in Los Angeles.
Project WILD: Volunteers work alongside first and second-generation immigrant students to advance both their academic and overall well being.
The Bruin Experiment: Works to inspire a love of science in middle school students. Volunteers mentor middle-schoolers in the design of their very own science project.
BruinHope: A non-profit organization founded in 2004 to serve orphanages in Tijuana Mexico in need of resources. UCLA BruinHope makes four quarterly visits to deliver collections of materials and foods and conduct educational projects. These projects inspire the development of trust and confidence that aid these children in the orphanages to heal from experiences of abuse and abandonment.
Storytelling: Each year, Storytelling chooses a general topic and opens the platform for individuals to anonymously share their stories in relation to that topic. Each person is partnered with a Writer who tells their story.
The Bruin Initiative: A student-run volunteer organization at UCLA that aims to alleviate educational inequality and promote higher education. Bruin Partners motivate students toward higher education and empower them to reach their full potential as future contributors to society.
VITA: Provides free federal and state income tax preparation assistance to low- to moderate-income, disabled, and elderly individuals in the Los Angeles community.
CHAMPs: Provides tutoring and mentorship for youth residents of the Echo Park community.
Watts Tutorial Program: A tutoring and mentoring organization at UCLA that serves the children of the Watts and William Mead government housing projects. The program offers one-on-one tutoring sessions and provides nutritious home-cooked meals from many different cultures for our recipients.
The Drug Outreach & Education Program (DOEP): Serves to educate members of the greater Los Angeles community about illegal, prescription, and recreational drugs. DOEP presents information to students about the history, laws, statistics, and most importantly the physical and physiological effects of these drugs.
WYSE: Provides the resources and support necessary to empower young women to make confident and informed life decisions and community change. At two middle school sites, WYSE mentee-mentor pairs create long-lasting bonds of trust, respect, and friendship.
The Glendale Learning Project: Empowers students at Woodrow Wilson Middle School through tutoring and mentorship. This project’s goal is to not only inspire students to gain the confidence to succeed academically but also cultivate a life-long love for learning.
The Writer’s Den: A forum for creative writers at UCLA. They offer writing education for underserved K-12 students in the Los Angeles area.
KidsKorner: Volunteers commute to North Hollywood communities to provide individualized academic support and mentorship to students ages 4-16.

UCLA Science Project: Sense-Making in Science Education

UCLA Science Project believes that making sense of the world around us is foundational for science. Sense-making is the mental and physical practices to generate a deep understanding of events or processes in our environment. Focusing on big ideas from your grade level provides students opportunities to deepen their understanding and connect to areas of their interest and community. In the classroom, students are able to safely and equitably access the same supplies and explorations. The Big Idea might be discovered with different materials and experiences. Structure lessons to provide students with choices to explore phenomena.

CNSI Proctored Workshops for Teachers

CNSI proctored workshops are offered for K-12 teachers throughout the year. These workshops provide teachers with hands-on activities and pedagogical tools to engage students in science at various levels.

Workshop Examples and Project Ideas

Structural Biopolymers: How can something that is mostly made up of water - boba, diapers, humans - retain a solid structure? In a series of investigations where students perform hands-on activities, they will come to understand that biology depends on the organization of biomolecular scaffolds, called structural biopolymers, at the nanoscale. Students will synthesize biogels of different stiffness using common food ingredients.
Liquid Crystals: Why do mood rings actually change color? How does it work? In a series of investigations, students will be led step-by-step to learn about the different states of matter, the unique properties of liquid crystals and their applications, and make their own “switchable glass” windows. When the organization of the liquid crystals is on the nanoscale, they can interact with visible light (nanometer wavelengths) to produce interesting optical properties, like affecting the color we see.
Measuring the Unobservable: How can you measure that which is unobservable to the naked eye? In this experiment, students will indirectly measure the size of an oil molecule. Students will first be introduced to a phenomenon - the forming of an oil monolayer on a water surface. Then, through a series of investigations and hands-on activities, they will come to understand how oil and water interact, why oil molecules form a single layer on the surface, and how they can use math (volume of a cylinder) to calculate the size of an oil molecule.
Surface Wettability: Why does water bead up on the surface of a lotus leaf? In this experiment, students will perform a series of investigations and hands-on activities where they characterize the water droplet shape on various surfaces and are given scientific language to describe surface wettability (hydrophobic/philic). When nanoscale surface features are introduced, these properties can be enhanced to form SUPERhydrophobic/philic surfaces. Students will learn the concepts of surface chemistry and wettability through observing nature (plant leaves) and the world around them. Students will physically and chemically modify surfaces to change the surface wettability. Students will also be introduced to the concept of scientists learning from nature and applying that knowledge for emerging industrial applications of materials with these unique characteristics.
Nanoparticles: Students will synthesize silver nanoparticles and test its ability to inhibit the rate of yeast cellular respiration (carbon dioxide production) compared to other silver-containing compounds. Students will synthesize gold nanoparticles of different shapes and sizes and compare the observed color. Students will learn that the color observed is due to the plasmonic resonance (a collective oscillation of electrons on the surface) of gold nanoparticles when they interact with light.
Emulsions: Have you ever wondered why salad dressings tend to separate into an oil phase and a water phase, but when you shake it they mix together? In this experiment, students will be introduced to the concept of emulsions - fine dispersions of minute droplets of one liquid in another in which it is not soluble or miscible. Students will create emulsions with common food-safe reagents that they might encounter when baking a cake and measure their stability over time.
Diffraction: In this experiment, students will learn about properties of light waves. Students will pass laser light through a material that has nanoscale spacings that bend the light to produce a diffraction pattern. From the diffraction pattern (macroscopic observation), students can mathematically calculate the nanoscale spacing (Pythagorean Theorem or trigonometry).
Nanolithography: How are the small patterns on circuit boards for computers and phones made? In this experiment, students use light to transfer a pattern onto a surface, ultimately resulting in a network of very small metal wires on a plastic board. Students can then measure resistance as a function of wire length and wire diameter to explore both the positive and negative resistive aspects of making things small, but close together.
Water Filtration: Where does your water come from and what is in it? Clean water and water reuse is among the greatest challenges of modern times. In this experiment, affinity and size exclusion methods of filtration are visually explored using various commercial and laboratory nanomaterial-based methods.
Energy Storage: What are ways to store energy? What are the pros and cons of different forms of energy storage? Energy storage is necessary for many important applications such as portable electronics (such as cell phones and wearables), electric vehicles, and renewable energy storage. In this experiment, students will be making and using supercapacitors, which utilize the high surface area of nanostructured carbon to store charge. Students will use their synthesized supercapacitor to power a switch board with different colored LEDs.
Ferrofluids: Originally developed by NASA as a means of moving rocket fuel in a weightless environment, ferrofluids are magnetic liquids used in a wide variety of engineering and consumer applications.
Solar Cells: How can we harness energy from the sun? Renewable energy is energy derived from natural sources that are replenished at a higher rate than they are consumed. In this experiment, students will prepare dye-sensitized solar cells - devices which convert light energy into chemical / electrical energy - from simple starting materials and measure their electrical output in the light and dark using a multimeter.

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