<human>: Can you give me the gist of the text in a nutshell?

Hi Reddit! Long time lurker here. My mother is a fourth grade public school teacher and pretty much every year in her (ever expanding) class there's always a kiddo who needs a little extra attention and support due to life circumstances totally out of his or her control. 

This year she has a young man in her class who lost his father in an accident three years ago and currently lives with his mother who is  undergoing treatment for cancer. He started the year as a pretty introverted kid (no siblings) with self esteem issues and obvious emotional baggage to work through. He doesn't have access to a computer or internet at his house, which occasionally makes it difficult to do homework assignments.

 My mom has been taking time to tutor him after school and help him complete his work and he has begun to show improvement in his self esteem and emotional states, but he is still relatively shy and could really use an older supportive figure to take some interest in him and his life.

Anyway, the kids have a science fair coming up and I thought I would work with my mom to help this guy with his while his mother recovers from surgery and really spend some time both showing him that we're really rooting for him and maybe spark some interest in the sciences. 

I would love to hear any ideas that you guys had about nifty little experiments that really showed off some cool aspect of the scientific method that would be doable at a fourth grade level.

Some of the other kids are doing stuff along the lines of "what types of metals rust quickest in orange juice" and I was just thinking that maybe if I found the perfect experiment that showed how awesome it is to look at the world with a scientific view it would both mean a lot to- and inspire him. 

I'm posting this in r/askreddit instead of r/askscience for both the larger audience and also because I am at the end of the day looking for something (relatively) conceptually and logistically simple. Any help at all would be greatly appreciated! Happy holidays Reddit!
<bot>: Mom is a teacher with a struggling kid who lost his dad and whose mom is currently battling cancer. Looking for a science fair project that would both enable him to be inspired while also spending time with him to show him someone cares.