Give the student a box of spaghetti, string and white glue and ask him to build a bridge. Set two chairs with their seats facing each other about 1 foot apart and tell the child that he needs to span the two chairs. Have him use the spaghetti to build a bridge crossing the space, and then weigh down the bridge with weight to see how much it can bear. Have the child build different kinds of bridges to see which one will bear the most weight.
Have the child build a tower out of uncooked spaghetti. Let her experiment with different widths of beams in their tower. Show her that one stick of spaghetti is fairly fragile, but several sticks glued together are significantly stronger. Show her pictures of towers and how they are structured and have her copy the structures. This is a hands-on experiment that teaches about stress and tensile strength.
When cooking pasta, it is common to boil a great deal of water and then drain it off. How much water is really necessary when you are cooking pasta? For a child who is a little older and who can handle a stove, have him try cooking the pasta using various amounts of water. How much water makes for pasta that tastes the best, and what conditions need to be met? Does stirring help? This type of experiment teaches the child about the effects of heat and temperature and encourages him to experiment with the world around him.
Place a small amount of pasta in each of three plastic bags, adding a damp paper towel to each one. Place one bag in a warm place, one bag in a cool place and one bag in a location at room temperature. Check the bags daily for mold, comparing the three bags. Have the child examine the mold under a magnifying glass or a microscope and ask her to draw pictures of what she sees. Ask her why she thinks the mold might be thicker in one bag than in another one.