If you have lived a decade or two on the planet you would have come to the conclusion that the temperatures on the planet are far more volatile this year than they have ever been in the past. The winter has been cooler and the summer has been warmer than previous seasons.

There is a definite swing to extreme temperatures on the planet. So why is Climate Change still considered a myth? Human activity such as the burning of fossil fuels is contributing to increased concentrations of greenhouse gas (GHG) in the atmosphere leading to adverse changes in global climate.

The corporates worldwide have decided that Climate Change is not related to their activities. Half of the companies misrepresented climate science in their public communications, and the majority of them found other ways to spread misinformation. This included befuddling concerned citizens with bogus reports of their own findings.

They seem to be following the path of the tobacco industry whose end goal was delaying sensible regulations that protect our health and safety. The companies are out to cause confusion and delay by contesting all the findings of any climate change scientific study ever undertaken. A fact that does not bode well for the collective future of the planet.

We feel Global Warming is a distant problem and will eventually be solved by the miracles of science as it does not affect human lives and lifestyles too much. The truth is while humans may just find the planet a bit warmer and so decide to go indoors and enjoy the AC, the rest of the flora and fauna on Earth is at risk.

The Gila National Forest is battling a wildfire since June 2012 that is a direct result of global warming. The fire in the state of New Mexico started because the high temperatures dried up the forest leaving is vulnerable to fire which incidentally is believed to have started due to lightening. Now the dry wood is acting as fuel to feed the fire raging through the forest.

The Gila Wilderness has been in the past a fragile home to a small population of Mexican Wolves. This rare breed of wolves is now facing extinction in the region due to the forest. The young bears, mountain lions, birds, coyotes, and all the other species just born a few months ago in the spring are also going to find it tough to survive as the forest cover depletes with the wildfire.

Global Warming is not some distant problem that maybe our descendants will have to face, its a current issue that we need to deal with right now. What would be most helpful would be to have science projects highlighting this problem’s various aspects and offering concrete solutions.

Global warming is the term used to describe ever rising temperatures on the planet due to the activities of mankind. This heating up of the planet is now on record thanks to a number of diligent science projects taken up by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center.

NOAA scientists found that the average temperature — 64.3 degrees F – for the contiguous US during May 2012 was 3.3 degrees higher than the long-term average. This means that the earth is losing moisture and is becoming drier. The rain isn’t helping as the nationally averaged precipitation as per the NOAA scientists was 2.51 inches, which is 0.36 inches below average.

31 states experienced record warmth for the season. Only the Northwest did not see warmer-than-average temperatures; only Oregon and Washington had temperatures that were normal. The scientists go so far as to say that 37.4 percent of the contiguous US is experiencing drought conditions.

The drought and wind created ideal wildfire conditions in the Southwest. Over 210,000 acres of the Gila National Forest in western New Mexico have already been consumed by forest fires. The animals were trapped and those which survived the fire may not last much longer as they are now starving in the absence of their natural food. Is there a science project that can help overcome this catastrophe?

Having Science as a subject can open up a number of unusual and interesting career options for a student. There are different disciplines of science under which you can pursue a career. These include fields that one would not associate with the traditional image of science and technology.

For instance you could be wondering what you can do with biology? Life sciences offer more than the opportunity to be either a doctor, a dentist, a health educator or a biology teacher. You could become an agricultural technician, or if you prefer animals to plants, a vet. You would also have the option of becoming a biochemist, a chiropractor, or even a genetic counselor. Definitely not typical roles and careers that you would associate with life science, are they?

Similarly you would be amazed at the diversity that being an engineer can afford. You can rest assured that the robotics expert, the civil engineer, the CAD designer, the software specialist and the mechanical engineer are not the only jobs open to you in this field. You could be an energy engineer, a landscape artist, a marine architect, a nanotechnology developer or a mapping technician.

Again none of these roles are typically associated with engineering, but you need to be one to do the job. The truth is that science is applied in practically all our vocations to some extent of the other and so some scientific experimentation can always lead to a new discipline being built on an older one.

In recent years there has been a major effort to revive STEM subjects that include science, technology, engineering and math. The lack of skilled manpower in these fields has led to encouraging the development of interest in these subjects while students are still in school.

This does not mean that your career options get limited to being a researcher, an engineer or a robotics specialist. There are any number of interesting jobs that will be open to you as a result of your mastering the STEM subjects. Some of these include jobs that may never show you the inside of a laboratory at all.

Many of these jobs are new and have just developed in the last few decades. Take for instance Climate Change Analysts. They are in great demand. Their apparent ability to use scientific principles and mathematical calculations to predict the effect of human activity on climate change is much in demand.

Another interesting career option includes becoming a Cartographer. While maps have been made since times immemorial the data that a good photogrammetrist can provide can be invaluable for the accuracy of the new generation of maps.

Maps can give us topographic, climate, and even political information so there is no chance of such a job becoming tedious or boring.  Why not make as accurate a map you can of your own neighborhood as part of your science project?

There are a number of science fair competitions for high school students at the national level. Close to 9 million students take part in science fair competitions annually. These include kids from kindergarten right up to grade 12. However it is only the grade 9 to 12 students who participate in the more serious science fair competitions.

These competitions are sponsored by leading members of the research and technology industry. Intel offers the Science Talent Search, the Conrad Foundation offers the Spirit of Innovation awards, Davidson Fellows Scholarship Program and the Siemen’s Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science and Technology is another one with serious prize money.

These competitions do not allow walk in entries. There is a lot of preparation that goes into making these the best showcase events for talent in science. So it is natural that there is a set of guidelines that needs to be met for the entries to qualify. It is once they qualify that the students get to compete in the final national level science competition.

The prizes differ from competition to competition and can vary from the finalists receiving $1000. to the winner taking a grand prize of $100,000. It is serious business indeed and if you want to win at the national level science fair competition you will need more than a good idea.

In recent times the cellphone has come under attack very often for being cancer generating, causing brain damage and stimulating growth of tumors. However that same little electronic device can also be a major life saver with the X-Finder. The telephone application was developed by 15 year old Maximilian from Germany.

The software is to be loaded on the cellphone and then can b e used to find the elderly missing by sending a special SMS to the phone. The phone will then respond with an SMS giving its exact location. This can make it easy to find a person trapped in an emergency. The X-Finder software won fourth place in the world’s largest science fair in San Jose in California.

The X-Finder has been called an electronic guardian angel by its creator, Maximilian. For an elderly gentleman who tends to forget just where he is due to Alzheimer’s disease the X-Finder could be just that. Or for a person trapped under rubble of a building after an earthquake, the device would truly prove a life saver.

A simple invention that uses another innovation as a vehicle, but what a difference it could potentially make. These are the kinds of ideas that win science fair prizes. Now think of something simple that could make a major difference and make it a reality.

One of the most fascinating and rewarding science projects has been the ongoing improvements made in organ transplantation. When a diseased organ is replaced by another human being’s organ and this procedure increases the life of the patient it is nothing short of a miracle.

The first successful organ transplantation took place in 1954 when Ronald Lee Herrick donated his kidney to his identical twin brother. The organ transplantation elongated his brother’s life by 8 years. The monozygotic twins were easily able to handle the transfer as the organ was not rejected by the body’s defence system as a foreign object.

Organ transplantation is a major surgical process which has come a long way since the first heart transplant by Dr Christiaan Barnard. In 1967 Dr Barnard transplanted the heart of a brain dead woman into a new body where it beat for 18 more days. The feat opened the flood gates and organ transplantation gradually became mainstream rather than experimental procedures.

Today the trouble is that we have the technology, but not enough organ donors. Most organs are harvested from old people who died natural deaths after 65 years. This makes the quality of the organs being transplanted poor. Accident victims who are brain dead, or suffer irreversible cardiac failure are better sources.

Often organs can not be harvested because it is unknown if the person wanted to donate them or not. The relatives of the deceased are too overwrought at the time to take the decision and good organs can get wasted. Perhaps  a science project expounding why one must become an organ donor would be a good idea to raise awareness about the issue.

The out of body sensations that a human being faces in a near death experience may actually help improve the virtual gaming experience if the neurologists in Switzerland have their way. The team of researchers at the Ecole Polytecnique Federale de Lausanne has been studying the brain’s reaction to the conflict of senses.

Led by Olaf Blanke, the team has been conducting experiments where a person is placed in a virtual reality setting. The volunteer is then asked to identify with a computer generated image or avatar. Then the person receives a physical stimulation like a stick touching their arm. Simultaneously something is seen to touch the computer generated avatar.

The human volunteer begins to identify with the computer generated avatar to a great extent. If the finger is squeezed of the human, but nothing is done to the avatar, the human being actually does not register the intense pain that he should feel. The perception that the avatar is the reality can become very strong.

The area of the brain which affects this “one with the avatar” complex is the same in which out of body experiences are handled. The region of the brain needs more scientific study but the neurologists say it could lead to several breakthrough treatments.

Ever wonder why you love going to some stores? It could be because of the kind of music they play says a scientific study. It has already been established that playing music can soothe the frayed nerves at a dentist’s clinic, but can the piped music in a store make you want to spend more?

Apparently it can, as per Trevor Cox, a British acoustics researcher. Although it would depend on some other factors such as how loud the music is and what the ambiance in the shop is like. Some conventional wisdom must apply to all the piped music we keep hearing.

Soft, slow music makes people tend to linger longer and spend more in stores as per Cox. However is the music is loud and brash it makes the people want to run away. The type of music being played is also a factor to be considered.

Christmas music including carols and songs such as “Let it snow” are actually effective in making wishful thinking come alive in shoppers during the season. This again, leads to more sales. In France the romantic instrumental tunes increased the sale of flowers in a shop.The playing of accordion music helped sell more French wine than German wine in a liquor store. This musical study is still a fledgling science project.