Amaze your teacher, classmates and science fair judges with this sculpture of the human body made from balloons. In an afternoon, you can blow up intestines, kidneys, liver, heart and lungs to create a prize-winning project. With a little ingenuity and a lot of lung power, you'll soon be bringing home the blue ribbon and winner's certificate.
- Safety goggles
- 30 sausage-type pink balloons
- 2 small (6" when inflated) brown balloons
- 1 regular size (8"-10")pink balloon
- 1 large (12"-14") red balloon
- 2 large (12"-14") pink balloons
- 1 small (6"-8") red heart shaped balloon
- Double-sided sticky tape
- 24" square piece of cardboard
Prepare this project the day before the fair if possible. Balloons will be at their best for only a few days, when your project will start to deflate.
Wear safety glasses when blowing up balloons, especially if blowing up by mouth.
Put on the safety goggles.
Inflate the pink sausage balloons, leaving a 1/4 inch tip at the end of every balloon.
Connect all of the pink sausage balloons. Tape a couple of pink balloons to the cardboard, forming a circle twelve inches in diameter. Continue adding balloons upward, using liberal amounts of tape to hold the balloons together. The pink balloons will form the intestines, so make lots of interesting twists and turns.
Inflate the brown balloons. Try to blow the balloons up unevenly to form a kidney shape. It will help if you underinflate the balloon a little. Stick them on top of the pile of intestines, toward the back.
Blow up a regular pink balloon. While you are inflating the balloon, hold one hand fairly tightly around the neck of the balloon. This is the stomach, and it goes in front of the kidneys.
Fill a large red balloon and two large pink balloons. Let some of the air out, so the balloons look a little wilted.
Place the red balloon on top of the stomach, laying down as much as it can from left to right (this will be the liver). Place the pink balloons above, to the left and to the right (these are the lungs).
Inflate the red heart, and place in between the lungs.
Things You'll Need
Tips
Warnings
References
Tips
- Prepare this project the day before the fair if possible. Balloons will be at their best for only a few days, when your project will start to deflate.
Warnings
- Wear safety glasses when blowing up balloons, especially if blowing up by mouth.
About the Author
Stephanie Ellen teaches mathematics and statistics at the university and college level. She coauthored a statistics textbook published by Houghton-Mifflin. She has been writing professionally since 2008. Ellen holds a Bachelor of Science in health science from State University New York, a master's degree in math education from Jacksonville University and a Master of Arts in creative writing from National University.
Photo Credits
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