Human Behavior Science Projects explore the fascinating ways that human beings behave. Behavioral projects are a popular choice for kids headed to the science fair. While gathering enough test subjects can be tricky, these projects can be a great way for students to learn about testing, meet interesting people, and have fun. There are so many things to discover, that the hardest part may be simply choosing a topic. Here’s a list of ideas to get you started.
1. Determine the soothing effect of music by taking the pulse before and after a five minute session of classical piano.
2. See if more people are visual learners or auditory learners by having humans memorize a telephone number that they only see, then a different one that they only hear.
3. Discover if wearing glasses helps or hurts a salesperson’s profit. Have a salesperson wear glasses for a series of days, then go to work without the glasses. Compare their total sales for the two periods.
4. Find out if yawning is contagious behavior by watching a group of children before and after the group leader yawns. Note that because it is such a primitive reflex, yawning is a very popular human behavior science project subject.
5. Are younger children more inclined to like their teachers than older students? Rate the popularity of teachers that teach different ages of kids.
6. Measure the time it takes for children to learn a poem set to music or not set to music.
7. Find out if the scent of lemon helps attention by calculating test scores of people who have or have not sniffed a lemon. This is a great science project that might help ADHD students!
8. Find out if two ears or one are better at localizing a sound by hiding an object, and timing how long individuals take to find it. (Get a complete project guide for this project at Online Science Projects.)
Of course, you don’t need a study of human behavior to know that students like to come up with new and unique ideas. So put on your thinking cap and come up with your own human behavior science project!