20 STEM Project Ideas for Middle School Students

If you want to make a career in STEM, starting as early as middle school is highly recommended, and pursuing a project can help you develop a strong foundation. One of the best things about STEM is that you can pick up concepts quicker through experimentation and projects than just relying on theory. So, it is worthwhile to explore some project ideas that you can pursue at your convenience with supervision from teachers and parents!

While there is a wide range of experiments and projects that you can pursue while in middle school, we recommend sticking with beginner-level projects that do not require a lot of preparation. To help you get started, we have compiled a list of 20 STEM projects for middle school students! 

1. DNA extraction from a fruit/vegetable

Field: Biology

Experience Level: Beginner

DNA extraction might sound complicated, but you’d be surprised to know that extracting DNA from household items like peas or strawberries is very simple – and you can do it by yourself without any laboratory instruments! 

This is what you’ll need: A fruit (preferably something like a strawberry) soap/shampoo, salt, water, rubbing alcohol (chilled), a ziplock bag, a coffee filter or cheesecloth, a transparent glass or bowl, and a spoon. Once you have all the materials, you will need to follow these simple steps: 

• Mash the fruit or vegetable in a ziplock bag.

• Mix 2 tsp of soap, 1 tsp salt, and 1/2 cup water.

• Add the solution to the ziplock bag, seal, and mix gently.

• Pour the mixture through a coffee filter into a glass. 

• Pour cold rubbing alcohol down the side of the glass to form a layer.

• Wait a few minutes for the DNA to appear as white strands. Use a spoon to lift it out.

DNA is not soluble in alcohol, so it precipitates in the last step because crushing the strawberries breaks open many of the strawberry cells, thus exposing DNA material. Soap molecules break down the cell membrane and DNA is let out in the mixture. Salt addition causes DNA to stick together and passing this mixture through a filter helps separate the fruit material from the DNA material. You can refer to this article to understand the process and the simple science behind this practical experience.

2. Build a solar-powered mini car

Field: General engineering

Experience Level: Intermediate

You must’ve seen and possibly taken a ride in electric vehicles. They offer a viable alternative to fossil fuel-powered cars. The next avenue people want to explore is the feasibility of solar-powered cars! Satellites and space probes already utilize solar energy extensively, and researchers are exploring how to commercialize this technology for either commercial or transport vehicles. You can explore the current research in this field, starting with this article.

Using solar cells, alligator clip leads, a small electric motor, and various plastic materials, you can build a solar-powered miniature car! This small project will give you hands-on experience in building a basic car while also observing solar energy in action. This article from ScienceBuddies provides you with all the details required to get started on this project. 

3. Conduct Mendel’s pea plant experiment

Field: Genetic engineering

Experience Level: Intermediate

Gregor Mendel, often called the father of genetics, conducted groundbreaking experiments with garden peas (Pisum sativum) to study the principles of inheritance. It is a classical experiment and has been used to teach the basics of inheritance in complex organisms. The good thing about this experiment is that it can be replicated anywhere and you just need good observation and documentation skills to conduct the project successfully. 

What you’ll need to do: 

Select two varying traits in pea plants, such as seed color (yellow or green) and seed shape (round or wrinkled). Plant the parent generation (P) with different trait combinations. Allow them to self-pollinate and collect the seeds from each plant separately. Sow the seeds and observe the offspring (F1) generation. Then, allow the F1 plants to self-pollinate and collect the F2 generation seeds. Record the number of plants exhibiting each trait in the F2 generation and analyze the data to understand the inheritance patterns and confirm Mendel's principles of heredity.

4.  Explore the feasibility of hydroponics at home

Field: Horticulture

Experience Level: Intermediate

Hydroponics is the buzzword in agriculture today and refers to the process of growing plants without soil and instead relying on nutrient-rich water solutions. An aggregate substrate, or growing media, such as vermiculite, coconut coir, or perlite is also included in this technique. Many crops are being grown commercially using this technique. You can learn more about it here and setting up a basic hydroponic system is not that complicated!

You’ll need containers, a water pump, and grow lights. Start by filling the containers with a growing medium like rock wool or clay pellets. Dissolve essential nutrients in water and circulate this solution to plant roots using a low-power pump. Ensure proper lighting and monitor pH and nutrient levels. This project illustrates plant growth, efficient nutrient uptake, and water conservation, showcasing an alternative to traditional agriculture. Document plant growth, comparing it to soil-grown plants, which you should cultivate simultaneously.

5. Build-a-bridge project

Field: Civil Engineering/ Architecture

Experience Level: Intermediate

You can explore the principles behind the different kinds of bridges by building a model bridge using materials like popsicle sticks, straws, spaghetti sticks, and other household items. Here, you will get to learn how different shapes and materials affect design and stability. 

Start small and learn about the fundamental principles of bridge design (span, load, etc) by setting minimum load targets, and freestanding sections, and even allot yourself a budget to simulate how civil engineers work with finite resources. Basic knowledge of materials science and structural engineering is required for this project and you can always ask 

your teachers and parents for help. 

Before beginning the project, you should research the different kinds of bridges (arch, suspension, etc.). There are multiple helpful resources online, including YouTube videos, and this article is a good reference material to get started. 

6. Develop a Chatbot

Field: Computer Science

Experience Level: Intermediate

Building a chatbot will be one of the most rewarding passion projects using AI. Chatbots are everywhere, and you must’ve had the opportunity to interact with one. Chatbots are fun and serve a very practical purpose. 

You can use languages like Python or JavaScript, along with libraries like NLTK or TensorFlow to build a chatbot from scratch. If you're building a chatbot that uses natural language processing (NLP), you'll need to train it using datasets according to your needs.

7. Explore the various uses and applications of robotic arms

Field: Robotic engineering

Experience Level: Advanced

Robotic arms have wide commercial applications across multiple industries thanks to their adaptability and precision. You can build your own robotic arm in a few simple steps! Start with planning your robot arm’s size, reach, and movement range. This will help you gather relevant supplies. You’ll need servos, a potentiometer (4 pieces), an Arduino UNO, and frame materials (like cardboard or plastic). Start by assembling a sturdy frame as per requirement. This will probably require some trial and error. Attach servo motors to the joints and connect batteries to servos and Arduino. It is crucial to take your time and ensure proper wiring and error-free code before you can test your arm! Refer to this article for a detailed step-by-step guide.

8. Egg drop test

Field: Physics

Experience Level: Beginner

The egg drop test or challenge is one of the most famous experiments designed for school students. You are required to design and build a landing craft that keeps an egg safe when dropped from a height! This is a very simple and visual project that introduces you to some concepts of physics, materials science, and fluid dynamics.

Before beginning the project, you can read about gravity and how it pulls objects with mass, and discover which padding materials can keep your egg safe. Make multiple iterations of your landing craft with different materials to see which works best. You can use internal and external padding and even combine materials.

You need to use your creativity to think of designs and materials that can keep your egg safe! The simplest way is to use a defaulting balloon, that reduces the speed of the falling craft, but you can also use a combination of straws, that absorb the impact and keep your egg safe. 

9. Explore natural language processing (NLP) techniques in sentiment analysis

Field: Computer Science

Experience Level: Intermediate

If you are interested in computer science and machine learning, sentiment analysis is one of the projects that will help you understand one of the most common and simple applications of the technology. NLP techniques can be used to extract emotional tones and opinions from tweets. 

This research could be used to optimize parsing through content and make sure community guidelines are met. This Kaggle notebook is a great source for you to learn more about NLP and its applications in sentiment analysis of social media posts, especially tweets. You can follow a few simple steps to conduct a sentiment analysis using the provided dataset and see the algorithm in action yourself! You can also learn these concepts through programs like Veritas AI.

10. Investigating the growth patterns of different types of mold on food items

Field: Biology

Experience Level: Intermediate

Mycology is the study of fungi, a group that includes mushrooms, yeasts, and molds. If you’ve ever left bread out of the fridge for a bit too long, you must’ve seen it get covered in greenish-black mold over time. Well, you would be surprised to know that mold can survive on any foods with a high acid content, such as fruits, pickles, jams, salt meats, and tomatoes. 

So, if you’re interested in biology and microbial growth, you can start by observing the growth of mold right in your kitchen! To understand, you should only rely on visual observations of how the mold spreads on different food items under similar conditions, but for commercial purposes, you need to undertake sophisticated measurement techniques. 

11. Water Bottle Rockets

Field: Physics

Experience Level: Intermediate

Water Bottle rockets use similar principles to work as the rockets used by NASA and building them can be a fun and engaging activity for students. For this project, you will be building a single-stage rocket propelled by pressurized water. Rockets can be constructed from two-liter plastic bottles with fins attached for stability and a parachute included for recovery. Rockets are launched using a purpose-built launcher after being pressurized with a bicycle pump. 

You will get to see some concepts of momentum, pressure, and aerodynamic forces in action if you successfully build the launchpad. This is a detailed step-by-step guide from NASA on building a launchpad for your bottle rockets. 

12. Magnetic slime

Field: Physics

Experience Level: Beginner

Slimes are fun to play with as it is but adding a magnetic twist to them makes for a great learning experience. Slime is a non-Newtonian fluid, so when you apply quick pressure to the slime or a force acts upon it, the viscosity or thickness of the slime increases. Adding iron filings to it and then testing it against a magnet will make it seem as if the liquid is moving toward the magnet.

To get started, you will have to make the slime by mixing liquid starch and glue. You will need to use disposable gloves and knead the mixture until it is smooth. Once the slime is ready, you can add iron filings to it and when something like a neodymium magnet is near the magnetic slime, the iron filings are attracted to the magnet and pull the slime towards the magnet. 

13. Wine quality prediction

Field: Computer Science

Experience Level: Beginner

Wine quality prediction is a classic project that is suitable for beginners looking to learn machine learning. In this project, you will be using the dataset from Kaggle to predict win quality based on various factors that were obtained from physicochemical tests on the wine samples. They include volatile acidity, fixed acidity, residual sugar, citric acid, chlorides, free sulfur dioxide, total sulfur dioxide, pH, density, sulfates, alcohol content, and type (Red or White). 

Python is the choice of language for this project and alongside various libraries like Pandas, NumPy, and SkLearn, you will also be familiarized with the eXtreme Gradient Boosting machine learning algorithm, which helps in making accurate predictions. This is a great learning project for middle school students, as this does not require complex coding but only familiarity with Python libraries and data processing.

14. Optical character recognition (OCR) project

Field: Computer Science

Experience Level: Beginner

Optical character recognition (OCR) was a revolutionary technology back in the 1950s with IBM pioneering the tech behind it and remains quite relevant even today. Commercial OCR was available only in the 1990s. In modern times, the conversion of images of typed, handwritten, or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document, a photo of a document, a scene photo, or from subtitle text superimposed on an image all falls under the umbrella of OCR. 

With the advent of AI, OCR can be used to extract relevant information from millions of images online. What you will look to accomplish by undertaking this project is to use a readily available dataset to extract all texts from the images. This project, again, does not require expertise in coding, but a knowledge of TensorFlow and OpenCV.

15. Windmill or turbine

Field: Engineering

Experience Level: Beginner

The wind turbine experiment is a great way to learn about clean energy sources. Here, you will build your own turbine to understand how wind spins the blades of the fan, moving the internal turbine to generate electricity. See how efficient your turbine is by attaching a small weight that is hauled up when the wind blows on the blades. 

Learn how different materials and blade shapes, sizes, and angles impact efficiency. You can expect to develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills when deciding on materials and blades needed to build an efficient turbine. One of the best ways for middle school students to conduct this experiment is by using pinwheels and you can read more about it here. 

16. Magnetic levitating train

Field: Engineering

Experience Level: Intermediate

In this project, you will build a train without wheels! You need to have the proper materials for this project, which include: a magnet, a non-magnetic surface, and construction materials to build a track. This project will teach you about magnetic levitation and how magnetic fields generate a force. When constructing your train, experiment with different weights to see the maximum weight you can use to maintain levitation. 

This project will test your attention to detail and precision. Once built, adjust your model to ensure the train floats perfectly above the track, improving your problem-solving skills. You will learn about and see in action electric and magnetic forces between a pair of objects that do not require that the objects be in contact. This document from UCSB is a great resource for you to conduct the experiment yourself or with your classmates, with your science teacher taking the lead.

17. Explore the potential of biofuels

Field: Chemical Engineering

Experience Level: Intermediate

You must’ve heard about biofuels and their potential as an alternative to fossil fuels. Some cars run purely on biodiesel or a combination of biodiesel and ethanol. To know more about them, you can look into the production, benefits, and challenges of bio-derived fuels. Algal Biofuels are said to be the next promising avenue in biofuels, and you can find more about the research here.

You can conduct a reaction in your high school chemistry lab under supervision to better understand the basic chemistry behind making biofuels. All you’ll need is vegetable oil, methanol, and sodium hydroxide (NaOH). All the equipment you may need, such as beakers and heating mantles, can be found in the chemistry lab. 

Mix the sodium hydroxide and methanol to form methoxide, which will react with the vegetable oil to get 3 methyl esters of fatty acids, which are essentially biodiesel. This article is a great resource for understanding the chemistry and lab requirements for making biodiesel. 

18. Elephant toothpaste

Field: Chemistry

Experience Level: Beginner

Elephant toothpaste is one of the best hands-on projects for middle-school students. It is a very simple project and makes use of basic chemical reactions to create a great visual experiment. You’ll need a soap, coloring agent, Hydrogen peroxide, and an empty 2L water bottle or a graduated cylinder. 

Hydrogen peroxide is a liquid with a chemical formula of H2O2. It is readily available in different strengths or concentrations. If you mix yeast with hydrogen peroxide, the hydrogen peroxide will rapidly break down into water and oxygen gas. The oxygen gas bubbles out and in the presence of the soap, produces a large amount of foam. Adding a coloring agent adds to its visual appeal. 

This document from the University of Utah is a great resource for conducting this project safely. 

19. Colorful algae strings

Field: Chemistry and biology

Experience Level: Beginner

Algae are a diverse group of organisms that are found in almost all aquatic environments. If you live in a humid area that receives a lot of rainfall, you can observe the growth of algae patches on almost every surface. Because of their abundance and easy-to-grow characteristics, they have gained a lot of attention from the scientific communities who are looking for their applications in multiple fields, including biofuels, feedstock, and plastic alternatives. 

Some of the algae, like kelp, consist of polymers, which are long chains of molecules that can form large sheets like plastics. These natural polymers (alginates) can be extracted at home using just a few chemicals!

You will need sodium alginate (algae polymer) and calcium chloride that react to form a new material during the process. The extraction takes place in two steps as firstly; you need to prepare algae gel, which will make use of Sodium Alginate. This needs to be rested for a day and then add calcium chloride and the color of your choice to form the final substance. 

You can add water to this mixture to make it runnier. Add this to a piping cone and dispense out strings, which, when dried, look just like any plastic string. Refer to this document to understand the chemistry and process for this project.

20. Balloon hovercraft

Field: Physics

Experience Level: Beginner

This is a simple yet effective experiment-based project that helps you understand how potential energy is converted to kinetic energy in real time. All the materials you need for this project will be easily available at your home! You’ll need a compact Disc (CD), you will have to search your old storage boxes for this, a water bottle lid, like the sports bottle type that pops up to use, a hot glue gun, and finally, balloons.

Balloons are elastic and store potential energy when they are filled with air. When the air is released, the potential energy is converted into kinetic energy. This is the energy you see when the CD is propelled forward after a cushion of air is formed under it. The experiment works best on smooth surfaces and you also get to learn how friction affects motion.

You can apply the same principles to form a Balloon-powered card, which can be used in your local school exhibitions! Read more about it here. 

If you’re looking to build a project/research paper in the field of AI/ML, consider applying to Veritas AI!  

Veritas AI is founded by Harvard graduate students. Through the programs, you get a chance to work 1-1 with mentors from universities like Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and more to create unique, personalized projects. In the past year, we had over 1000 students learn AI & ML with us. You can apply here!

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