Get ready to impress your friends and family with these 15 fascinating science facts for kids, covering everything from physics and chemistry to biology and outer space! These fun science questions and answers are brought to you by Planet Science Kidz, who run hands-on workshops, camps and parties for curious young minds.
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15 Fascinating Science Facts for Kids
#1. Can Sunflowers Help Clean Up Radiation?
Yes! Sunflowers don’t just look pretty and produce tasty, nutritious seeds packed with vitamin B, iron, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, calcium, protein and vitamin E – they can also help clean up radioactive soil.
When planted in contaminated ground, sunflowers draw radioactive particles up through their roots along with other nutrients from the soil. Who knew sunflowers had superpowers!
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#2. What Are Humans Made From?
Did you know that 99% of the human body’s mass comes from just six elements – oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus? And you thought we were just flesh and blood!
Scientists reckon the average human body contains enough carbon to make around 9,000 pencils. That’s a lot of writing!
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#3. How Long Is One Year On Pluto?
One year on Pluto equals 248 years on Earth! That’s because it takes Pluto almost 248 Earth years to make one full orbit of the sun.
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Planet Science Kidz – Inspiring Young Minds
Planet Science Kidz helps children aged 5 to 12 discover and explore science through hands-on experiments. They run seasonal science workshops and camps, and can also come to your classroom, event or party to spark curiosity and inspire the next generation of young scientists.
Find out more about Planet Science Kidz.
#4. What Is Five Times Hotter Than The Surface Of The Sun?
Next time you see lightning, remember this: a bolt of lightning can reach temperatures around five times hotter than the surface of the sun! Lightning can hit roughly 53,540ºF, while the sun’s surface is around 10,340ºF.
If you could bore down to the sun’s core, though, temperatures could reach as much as 27,000,000ºF – but that’s one experiment nobody’s trying any time soon!
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#5. What Fruit Shares Up To 60% Of Its DNA With Humans?
The humble banana shares up to 60% of its DNA with humans. Almost every living thing has a genome – an instruction manual for growth and function, made up of DNA that tells the body how to build the proteins essential for life.
Everything alive evolved from a single common ancestor, then branched off into countless different forms over time – including humans and bananas! Even more surprising, humans share over 95% of our DNA with chimpanzees.
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#6. How Many Sweat Glands Are In A Human Foot?
Each of your feet has up to 250,000 sweat glands, capable of producing up to a pint of sweat a day between them!
Here’s the good news: sweat itself doesn’t actually smell. It’s the bacteria trapped in socks and shoes that causes odour – which is why it’s important to wash socks regularly and give shoes a rest between wears.
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#7. What Animals Have Blue Blood?
You may have heard that royalty have blue blood – but that’s just a myth! Animals that genuinely do include lobsters, snails and spiders.
Their blood contains a copper-rich protein called hemocyanin, which gives it a blue tint. In humans and most other animals, blood is red because it contains iron-rich hemoglobin instead.
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#8. Does Sound Travel Quicker In Water Than In Air?
Yes – sound can travel up to four times faster in water than in air! Sound moves as pressure waves, passing energy from one particle to the next, a bit like passing a baton in a relay race.
Because water is denser than air, its particles are packed closer together, so they can pass that energy along much more quickly.
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#9. What Animal Has Three Hearts?
An octopus doesn’t just have three hearts – it also has blue blood, eight arms and nine brains! One heart pumps blood around the body, while the other two send blood to its gills. As for the brains: one central brain runs the show, plus a smaller brain in each of its eight arms.
Octopuses can also change colour in an instant to camouflage from predators, thanks to special colour-changing cells called chromatophores.
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#10. What Is The Only Letter That Doesn’t Appear On The Periodic Table?
The letter J is the only one that never appears on the periodic table – every other letter of the alphabet features somewhere! Take a look at the image above and see if you can spot them all.
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#11. What Metal Is Liquid At Room Temperature?
Mercury is the only metal known to be liquid at room temperature. It’s not a great conductor of heat, but it does react quickly to temperature changes by expanding or contracting.
Mercury also has a high density and a high boiling point, which made it ideal for use in traditional thermometers and barometers for measuring temperature and pressure – although these days, digital thermometers are much more common.
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#12. What Plant Has More Chromosomes Than A Human Being?
Potatoes! Most humans have 46 chromosomes (23 pairs), but a potato has 48. Something to think about next time you’re tucking into a plate of mash!
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#13. Who Has More Bones – A Baby Or An Adult?
We’re born with around 300 bones, but as we grow, many of these fuse together, leaving most adults with just 206 bones.
Baby bones are mostly made of cartilage, which gradually hardens into solid bone through a process called ossification. This continues from birth right through to our twenties!
A couple more bone facts to wow your friends with: the smallest bone in the human body is the stirrup (or stapes), found in the middle ear, while the largest is the thigh bone (or femur).
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#14. Why Can Birds Survive Standing On Electrical Power Lines?
Birds are poor conductors of electricity! Electricity always takes the path of least resistance, flowing through good conductors like the copper wire inside power cables. Because a bird’s body doesn’t conduct electricity well, it can perch safely on a single power line without being shocked.
The danger comes if a bird touches two wires at different voltages at once. Electricity always flows from a higher voltage point to a lower one, so if there’s a voltage difference, the current will pass straight through the bird to get there – definitely not something you’d want to see happen!
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#15. How Long Does It Take For Plastic To Decompose?
On average, plastic takes around 450 years to decompose, and glass can take up to 4,000 years! It’s a good reminder of why reusing and recycling matters so much – nobody wants future generations digging up our old drinks bottles centuries from now.
So, how many of these science facts did you already know? Did any of them surprise you? Maybe you have a favourite science fact of your own – share it with us in the comments below!
Frequently Asked Questions
Are these science facts really true?
Yes – every fact in this list is based on real, well-documented science, from biology and chemistry to physics and space. They’re simplified to be easy for kids to understand and share.
What age group are these facts suitable for?
These facts work well for primary school-aged children upwards, though younger kids will enjoy the more visual and animal-based facts (like the three-hearted octopus!) just as much as older kids will enjoy the physics and space facts.
How can I use these facts with my kids?
They’re great as conversation starters at the dinner table, for school projects, or simply as fun trivia to share on a car journey. Many parents also use them alongside hands-on experiments to bring the science to life.
Where do these facts come from?
These facts are curated by Planet Science Kidz, who run hands-on science workshops, camps and parties for children aged 5 to 12.
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