Science and nature quiz questions and answers

Free science and nature questions with answers on the body, the elements, space and animals, written to be answerable by a room that did not study any of it.

Last reviewed 14 September 2026

How to use this round

Science has a reputation as the round that kills a pub quiz, and it is entirely undeserved. What kills it is science questions written as exam questions.

The version that works is about things people have observed: animals, the body, the weather, space. Everybody has a stake in those and nobody needs a qualification.

Avoid anything requiring a calculation. A table doing arithmetic under a timer is a table not enjoying itself.

Easy

Observable facts about the world. A science round pitched here works in any room.

1
How many legs does an insect have?
Answer: Six
2
What gas do plants absorb from the atmosphere?
Answer: Carbon dioxide
3
What is the largest animal on Earth?
Answer: The blue whale
4
How many planets are in our solar system?
Answer: Eight
5
What is the chemical symbol for water?
Answer: H2O
6
Which organ pumps blood around the human body?
Answer: The heart
7
What is the closest star to Earth?
Answer: The Sun
8
How many teeth does an adult human normally have?
Answer: 32
9
What is a young frog called before it develops legs?
Answer: A tadpole
10
Which planet is closest to the Sun?
Answer: Mercury
11
What is the freezing point of water in degrees Celsius?
Answer: 0
12
Which bird is known for its ability to mimic human speech?
Answer: The parrot

Medium

The middle of the round. Still nothing that needs a qualification, but a table will have to think.

13
What is the largest organ of the human body?
Answer: The skin
14
Which gas makes up about 78% of the Earth's atmosphere?
Answer: Nitrogen
15
What is the process by which plants make food using sunlight?
Answer: Photosynthesis
16
How many chambers does the human heart have?
Answer: Four
17
What is the hardest substance in the human body?
Answer: Tooth enamel
18
Which planet has the most moons of the classical eight?
Answer: Saturn
19
What is the name of the force that keeps planets in orbit?
Answer: Gravity
20
Which blood type is known as the universal donor?
Answer: O negative
21
What is the study of earthquakes called?
Answer: Seismology
22
How long does light from the Sun take to reach Earth?
Answer: About eight minutes
23
What is the largest species of shark?
Answer: The whale shark
24
Which element has the chemical symbol Fe?
Answer: Iron

Hard

For a tie-break or late in the round. Still answerable by reasoning rather than by having studied it.

25
What is the speed of light in a vacuum, to the nearest thousand kilometres per second?
Answer: About 300,000 km/s
26
Which scientist proposed the three laws of motion?
Answer: Isaac Newton
27
What is the name of the boundary around a black hole beyond which nothing escapes?
Answer: The event horizon
28
How many pairs of chromosomes does a human normally have?
Answer: 23
29
What is the SI unit of force?
Answer: The newton
30
Which part of the brain controls balance and coordination?
Answer: The cerebellum
31
What is the term for an animal that is active at twilight?
Answer: Crepuscular
32
Which element is the most abundant in the universe?
Answer: Hydrogen
33
What is the name of the process by which a liquid turns directly into a gas below its boiling point?
Answer: Evaporation
34
Which planet rotates on its side relative to its orbit?
Answer: Uranus

The nature version

If your room is likely to find science heavy going, run it as a nature round instead. Animals, birds, trees and weather score far better in most pubs and are the same category wearing a different coat.

Collective nouns for animals are the single most reliable sub-round here, a murder of crows or a parliament of owls, because they are surprising rather than technical.

What to avoid

Anything requiring a calculation under time pressure. Anything whose answer is a formula. And anything where the pub answer and the technically correct answer differ, because you will be defending the difference for the rest of the night.

Mix it into a general round

Two or three of these inside a general knowledge round works better than a full science round in most pubs.

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