It is theoretically predicted in [Opt. Lett.37, 1553 (2012)] that a full Poincaré (FP) beam can significantly reduce turbulence-induced scintillation. In this paper, we propose a method for synthesizing a FP beam for different beam orders and report experimental generation of the first-, second- and third-order FP beams. Furthermore, we carry out experimental measurement of the scintillation index of a FP beam passing through thermally induced turbulence. It is demonstrated that the FP beam indeed can significantly reduce the scintillation index compared to a Gaussian beam under certain conditions. Our results will be useful in long-distance free-space optical communications.