~ Science Experiments For Kids ~

[MysteRy]

Experience Gravity Free Water

What goes up must come down right? Well try bending the rules a little with a cup of water that stays inside the glass when held upside down. You'll need the help of some cardboard and a little bit of air pressure.


What you'll need:

A glass filled right to the top with water
A piece of cardboard
 

Instructions:

Put the cardboard over the mouth of the glass, making sure that no air bubbles enter the glass as you hold onto the cardboard.
Turn the glass upside down (over a sink or outside until you get good).
Take away your hand holding the cardboard.
 

What's happening?

If all goes to plan then the cardboard and water should stay put. Even though the cup of water is upside down the water stays in place, defying gravity! So why is this happening? With no air inside the glass, the air pressure from outside the glass is greater than the pressure of the water inside the glass. The extra air pressure manages to hold the cardboard in place, keeping you dry and your water where it should be, inside the glass.

[MysteRy]

What is Your Lung Volume?

Do you think you're fit and healthy? Let's test your lung volume to find out. Just how much air can your lungs can hold? With the help of a few simple household objects, some scientific know how and a dash of curiosity you can make this experiment look easy.

What you'll need:

Clean plastic tubing
A large plastic bottle
Water
Kitchen sink or large water basin
 

Instructions:

Make sure the plastic tubing is clean
Put about 10cm of water into your kitchen sink.
Fill the plastic bottle right to the top with water.
Put your hand over the top of the bottle to stop water escaping when you turn it upside down.
Turn the bottle upside down. Place the top of the bottle under the water in the sink before removing your hand.
Push one end of the plastic tube into the bottle.
Take a big breath in.
Breathe out as much air as you can through the tube.
Measure the volume of air your lungs had in them.
Make sure you clean up the area to finish.
 

What's happening?

As you breathe out through the tube, the air from your lungs takes the place of the water in the bottle. If you made sure you took a big breath in and breathed out fully then the resulting volume of water you pushed out is equivalent to how much air your lungs can hold. Having a big air capacity in your lungs means you can distribute oxygen around your body at a faster rate. The air capacity of lungs (or VO2 max) increases naturally as children grow up but can also be increased with regular exercise.

[MysteRy]

Bucket Spinning

You might think that an upside down bucket of water above your head would end up with you getting very wet but what if the bucket is spinning quickly in a circular motion? Give this fun science experiment for kids a try and see what happens while learning a thing or two about centripetal force.

 
What you'll need:

A reliable bucket with a strong handle
Water
An open area outside where spilling some water is ok.
 

Instructions:

Fill the bucket until it is around half full with water.
Stand well clear of other people or anything else that could get in the way.
Hold the bucket by its handle with your arm extended and start spinning it by your side towards the sky and back to the ground in a circular motion, make sure to spin it fast enough to keep the water inside the bucket. Be prepared to get a little wet as your technique improves.
Stop spinning before your arm gets tired, watching out for splashes as you carefully bring the bucket back to rest on the ground.
 

What's happening?

There's half a bucket of water spinning upside down above your head and yet it's not falling out and getting you wet, what's going on?

This experiment makes use of something called 'centripetal force', which is a force acting on an object moving in a circular path, directed towards the center around which it is moving. This type of force can also be seen on roller coasters or by satellites in orbit around a planet.

As you spin the bucket you might feel that it wants to fly off in a straight line away from you (you might even accidentally let go of it), this is a demonstration of Newton's first law of motion, that an object will continue in a straight line unless an outside force (in this case your arm) acts upon it.

[MysteRy]

Make a Crystal Snowflake!

Learn how to make a snowflake using borax and a few other easy to find household items. Find out how crystals are formed in this fun crystal activity, experiment with food coloring to enhance the look and keep your finished crystal snowflake as a great looking decoration!

What you'll need:

String
Wide mouth jar
White pipe cleaners
Blue food coloring (optional)
Boiling water (take care or better still get an adult to help)
Borax
Small wooden rod or pencil
 

Instructions:

Grab a white pipe cleaner and cut it into three sections of the same size.  Twist these sections together in the center so that you now have a shape that looks something like a six-sided star. Make sure the points of your shape are even by trimming them to the same length.

Take the top of one of the pipe cleaners and attach another piece of string to it. Tie the opposite end to your small wooden rod or pencil. You will use this to hang your completed snowflake.

Carefully fill the jar with boiling water (you might want to get an adult to help with this part).

For each cup of water add three tablespoons of borax, adding one tablespoon at a time. Stir until the mixture is dissolved but don’t worry if some of the borax settles at the base of the jar.

Add some of the optional blue food coloring if you'd like to give your snowflake a nice bluish tinge.

Put the pipe cleaner snowflake into the jar so that the small wooden rod or pencil is resting on the edge of the jar and the snowflake is sitting freely in the borax solution.

Leave the snowflake overnight and when you return in the morning you will find the snowflake covered in crystals! It makes a great decoration that you can show your friends or hang somewhere in your house.
 

What's happening?

Crystals are made up of molecules arranged in a repeating pattern that extends in all three dimensions. Borax is also known as sodium borate, it is usually found in the form of a white powder made up of colorless crystals that are easily dissolved in water.

When you add the borax to the boiling water you can dissolve more than you could if you were adding it to cold water, this is because warmer water molecules move around faster and are more spread apart, allowing more room for the borax crystals to dissolve.

When the solution cools, the water molecules move closer together and it can't hold as much of the borax solution. Crystals begin to form on top of each other and before you know it you have your completed crystal snow flake!

[MysteRy]

Invisible Ink with Lemon Juice

Making invisible ink is a lot of fun, you can pretend you are a secret agent as you keep all your secret codes and messages hidden from others. All you need is some basic household objects and the hidden power of lemon juice.


What you'll need:

Half a lemon
Water
Spoon
Bowl
Cotton bud
White paper
Lamp or other light bulb
 

Instructions:

Squeeze some lemon juice into the bowl and add a few drops of water.
Mix the water and lemon juice with the spoon.
Dip the cotton bud into the mixture and write a message onto the white paper.
Wait for the juice to dry so it becomes completely invisible.
When you are ready to read your secret message or show it to someone else, heat the paper by holding it close to a light bulb.
 

What's happening?

Lemon juice is an organic substance that oxidizes and turns brown when heated. Diluting the lemon juice in water makes it very hard to notice when you apply it the paper, no one will be aware of its presence until it is heated and the secret message is revealed. Other substances which work in the same way include orange juice, honey, milk, onion juice, vinegar and wine. Invisible ink can also be made using chemical reactions or by viewing certain liquids under ultraviolet (UV) light.

[MysteRy]

Make an Easy Lava Lamp

Learn how to make an easy lava lamp with this fun science experiment for kids. Use simple household items such as vegetable oil, food coloring, Alka-Seltzer and a bottle to create chemical reactions and funky balls of color that move around like a real lava lamp.

 
What you'll need:

Water
A clear plastic bottle
Vegetable oil
Food coloring
Alka-Seltzer (or other tablets that fizz)
 

Instructions:

Pour water into the plastic bottle until it is around one quarter full (you might want to use a funnel when filling the bottle so you don't spill anything).
Pour in vegetable oil until the bottle is nearly full.
Wait until the oil and water have separated.
Add around a dozen drops of food coloring to the bottle (choose any color you like).
Watch as the food coloring falls through the oil and mixes with the water.
Cut an Alka-Seltzer tablet into smaller pieces (around 5 or 6) and drop one of them into the bottle, things should start getting a little crazy, just like a real lava lamp!
When the bubbling stops, add another piece of Alka-Seltzer and enjoy the show!
 

What's happening?

If you've tried our oil and water experiment you'll know that the two don't mix very well. The oil and water you added to the bottle separate from each other, with oil on top because it has a lower density than water. The food coloring falls through the oil and mixes with the water at the bottom. The piece of Alka-Seltzer tablet you drop in after releases small bubbles of carbon dioxide gas that rise to the top and take some of the colored water along for the ride. The gas escapes when it reaches the top and the colored water falls back down. The reason Alka-Seltzer fizzes in such a way is because it contains citric acid and baking soda (sodium bicarbonate), the two react with water to form sodium citrate and carbon dioxide gas (those are the bubbles that carry the colored water to the top of the bottle).

Adding more Alka-Seltzer to the bottle keeps the reaction going so you can enjoy your funky lava lamp for longer. If you want to show someone later you can simply screw on a bottle cap and add more Alka-Seltzer when you need to. When you've finished all your Alka-Seltzer, you can take the experiment a step further by tightly screwing on a bottle cap and tipping the bottle back and forth, what happens then?

[MysteRy]

Will the Ice Melt and Overflow?

At first thought you might think that an ice cube sitting at the very top of a glass would eventually melt and spill over the sides but is this what really happens? Experiment and find out!

What you'll need:

A clear glass
Warm water
An ice cube
 

Instructions:

Fill the glass to the top with warm water.
Gently lower in the ice cube, making sure you don’t bump the table or spill any water over the edge of the glass.
Watch the water level carefully as the ice cube melts, what happens?
 

What's happening?

Even though the ice cube melted the water doesn’t overflow.  When water freezes to make ice it expands and takes up more space than it does as liquid water (that’s why water pipes sometimes burst during cold winters). The water from the ice takes up less space than the ice itself. When the ice cube melts, the level of the water stays about the same.

[MysteRy]

Test Your Dominant Side

Check out this cool experiment that will teach you more about how your body and brain work together. Test your dominant side by completing a series of challenges. Which hand do you write with? Which foot do you kick with? Do you have a dominant eye? Do you throw with one side of your body but kick with the other? Are you ambidextrous? Answer these questions and much more with this fun science experiment for kids.

What you'll need:

A pen or pencil
Paper or a notepad to write your findings on
An empty tube (an old paper towel tube is good)
A cup of water
A small ball (or something soft you can throw)
 

Instructions:

Write ‘left’ or ‘right’ next to each task depending on what side you used/favored.
When you’ve finished all the challenges review your results and make your own conclusions about which is your dominant eye, hand and foot.
 

Eye tests:

Which eye do you use to wink?
Which eye do you use to look through the empty tube?
Extend your arms in front of your body. Make a triangle shape using your fore fingers and thumbs. Bring your hands together, making the triangle smaller (about the size of a coin is good). Find a small object in the room and focus on it through the hole in your hands (using both eyes). Try closing just your left eye and then just your right, if your view of the object changed when you closed your left eye mark down ‘left’, if it changed when you closed your right eye mark down ‘right’.
 

Hand/Arm tests:

Which hand do you use to write?
Pick up the cup of water, which hand did you use?
Throw the ball, which arm did you use?
 

Foot/Leg tests:

Run forward and jump off one leg, which did you jump off?
Drop the ball on the ground and kick it, which foot did you use?
 

What's happening?

So what side do you favor? Are you left handed or right handed? Left footed or right footed? Is your right eye dominant or is it your left?

Around 90% of the world’s population is right handed. Why most people favor the right side is not completely understood by scientists. Some think that the reason is related to which side of your brain you use for language. The right side of your body is controlled by the left side of your brain, and in around 90% of people the left side of the brain also controls language.

Others think the reason might have more to do with culture. The word ‘right’ is associated being correct and doing the right thing while the word ‘left’ originally meant ‘weak’. Favoring the right hand may have become a social development as more children were taught important skills by right handed people and various tools were designed to be used with the right hand.

Around 80% of people are right footed and 70% favor their right eye. These percentages are lower than those who are right handed and this could be because your body has more freedom of choice in choosing its favored foot and eye than that of its favored hand. In other words you are more likely to be trained to use your right hand than your right foot and even more so than your right eye.

It’s not strange to find people who favor the opposite hand and foot (e.g. left hand and right foot), and some people are lucky enough to be ambidextrous, meaning they can use their left and right sides with equal skill.

Try testing others and coming to your on conclusions about what side the human body favors and why.

Extra: Are you more likely to be left handed if one of your parents is left handed? What are some of the possible disadvantages for left handed people? (Tools, writing materials etc) Do left handed people have an advantage in sports?

Interesting fact: In 2009, only 7% of the players in the NBA were left handed while in 2008 around 26% of MLB pitchers were left handed.

Is it better to be left handed in some sports than others? What do you think?

[MysteRy]

Design and Test a Parachute

Learn about air resistance while making an awesome parachute! Design one that can fall slowly to the ground before putting it to the test, making modifications as you go.

What you'll need:

A plastic bag or light material
Scissors
String
A small object to act as the weight, a little action figure would be perfect
 

Instructions:

Cut out a large square from your plastic bag or material.
Trim the edges so it looks like an octagon (an eight sided shape).
Cut a small whole near the edge of each side.
Attach 8 pieces of string of the same length to each of the holes.
Tie the pieces of string to the object you are using as a weight.
Use a chair or find a high spot to drop your parachute and test how well it worked, remember that you want it to drop as slow as possible.
 

What's happening?

Hopefully your parachute will descend slowly to the ground, giving your weight a comfortable landing. When you release the parachute the weight pulls down on the strings and opens up a large surface area of material that uses air resistance to slow it down. The larger the surface area the more air resistance and the slower the parachute will drop.

Cutting a small hole in the middle of the parachute will allow air to slowly pass through it rather than spilling out over one side, this should help the parachute fall straighter.

[MysteRy]

Make a Big Dry Ice Bubble

Have fun making a dry ice bubble that will grow and grow as it fills with fog. This experiment is a great one for adults to do with kids. Add water to the dry ice, cover it with a layer of soapy water and watch your bubble grow, how big will it get before it bursts? Give it a try and find out!

What you'll need:

Water
A large bowl with a lip around the top (a smaller bowl or cup will work too)
A strip of material or cloth
Soapy mixture for making bubbles (water and some dishwashing liquid should do the trick)
Dry ice - one piece for a cup, more for a bowl. Places where adults can buy dry ice include large grocery stores and Walmart. Butchers and ice cream stores might have some too.
Safety first! Be careful with dry ice as it can cause skin damage if not used safely. Adults should handle dry ice with gloves and avoid directly breathing in the vapor.

 

Instructions:

Place your dry ice in the bowl and add some water (it should start looking like a spooky cauldron).
Soak the material in your soapy mixture and run it around the lip of the bowl before dragging it across the top of the bowl to form a bubble layer over the dry ice.
Stand back and watch your bubble grow!
 

What's happening?

Dry ice is carbon dioxide (CO2) in its solid form. At temperatures above -56.4 °C (-69.5 °F), dry ice changes directly from a solid to a gas, without ever being a liquid. This process is called sublimation. When dry ice is put in water it accelerates the sublimation process, creating clouds of fog that fill up your dry ice bubble until the pressure becomes too much and the bubble explodes, spilling fog over the edge of the bowl. Dry ice is sometimes used as part of theater productions and performances to create a dense foggy effect. It is also used to preserve food, freeze lab samples and even to make ice cream!

[MysteRy]

Make Lemonade Fizzy Drink

There's a lot of people out there that like drinking fizzy drinks, so why not do a fun science experiment that leaves you with your own lemon soda to drink afterwards!

A bit of lemon here and a bit of baking soda there and before you know it you'll be an expert at making your own fizzy drinks. Make your own lemonade softdrink with this fun experiment for kids.

What you'll need:

Lemon
Drinking glass
Water
1 teaspoon of baking soda
Some sugar to make it sweet
 

Instructions:

Squeeze as much of the juice from the lemon as you can into the glass.
Pour in an equal amount of water as lemon juice.
Stir in the teaspoon of baking soda.
Give the mixture a taste and add in some sugar if you think it needs to be sweeter.
 

What's happening?

The mixture you created should go bubbly and taste like a lemonade, soda, fizzy or soft drink, if you added some sugar it might even taste like a lemon flavoured soft drink you've bought at a store. The bubbles that form when you add the baking soda to the lemon mixture are carbon dioxide (CO2), these are the same bubbles you'll find in proper fizzy drinks. Of course they add a few other flavored sweeteners but it's not much different to what you made. If you are wondering how the carbon dioxide bubbles formed, it was because you created a chemical reaction when you added the lemon (an acid) to the baking soda (a base).

[MysteRy]

Diet Coke & Mentos Eruption

One of the most popular experiments of modern times is the Diet Coke and Mentos Geyser. Made popular by Steve Spangler, this experiment is a lot of fun and sure to amaze your friends and family (assuming you do it outside rather than in the living room).

 What you'll need:

Large bottle of Diet Coke
About half a pack of Mentos
Geyser tube (optional but makes things much easier)
 

Instructions:

Make sure you are doing this experiment in a place where you won't get in trouble for getting Diet Coke everywhere. Outside on some grass is perfect, please don't try this one in your family lounge!!
Stand the Diet Coke upright and unscrew the lid. Put some sort of funnel or tube on top of it so you can drop the Mentos in at the same time (about half the pack is a good amount). Doing this part can be tricky if you don't have a specially designed geyser tube, I recommend buying one from a local store such as Natures Discoveries (NZ) or online.
Time for the fun part, drop the Mentos into the Diet Coke and run like mad! If you've done it properly a huge geyser of Diet Coke should come flying out of the bottle, it's a very impressive sight. The record is about 9 metres (29 feet) high!
 

What's happening?

Although there are a few different theories around about how this experiment works, the most favoured reason is because of the combination of carbon dioxide in the Diet Coke and the little dimples found on Mentos candy pieces.

The thing that makes soda drinks bubbly is the carbon dioxide that is pumped in when they bottle the drink at the factory. It doesn't get released from the liquid until you pour it into a glass and drink it, some also gets released when you open the lid (more if you shake it up beforehand). This means that there is a whole lot of carbon dioxide gas just waiting to escape the liquid in the form of bubbles.

Dropping something into the Diet Coke speeds up this process by both breaking the surface tension of the liquid and also allowing bubbles to form on the surface area of the Mentos. Mentos candy pieces are covered in tiny dimples (a bit like a golf ball), which dramatically increases the surface area and allows a huge amount of bubbles to form.

The experiment works better with Diet Coke than other sodas due to its slightly different ingredients and the fact that it isn't so sticky. I also found that Diet Coke that had been bottled more recently worked better than older bottles that might have lost some of their fizz sitting on shop shelves for too long, just check the bottle for the date.

 

[MysteRy]

Blowing Up Balloons With CO2

Chemical reactions make for some great experiments. Make use of the carbon dioxide given off by a baking soda and lemon juice reaction by funnelling the gas through a soft drink bottle and in to your awaiting balloon!
 

What you'll need:

Balloon
About 40 ml of water (a cup is about 250 ml so you don't need much)
Soft drink bottle
Drinking straw
Juice from a lemon
1 teaspoon of baking soda
 

Instructions:

Before you begin, make sure that you stretch out the balloon to make it as easy as possible to inflate.
Pour the 40 ml of water into the soft drink bottle.
Add the teaspoon of baking soda and stir it around with the straw until it has dissolved.
Pour the lemon juice in and quickly put the stretched balloon over the mouth of the bottle.
 

What's happening?

If all goes well then your balloon should inflate! Adding the lemon juice to the baking soda creates a chemical reaction. The baking soda is a base, while the lemon juice is an acid, when the two combine they create carbon dioxide (CO2). The gas rises up and escapes through the soft drink bottle, it doesn't however escape the balloon, pushing it outwards and blowing it up. If you don't have any lemons then you can substitute the lemon juice for vinegar.

 

[MysteRy]

Make Your Own Fake Snot

As disgusting as it might sound to some people, let's make some fake snot! Snot actually serves an important purpose in our body so this experiment is not all about grossing out our friends, although that's certainly part of the fun.

What you'll need:

Boiling water (be careful with this)
A cup
Gelatin
Corn syrup
A teaspoon
A fork
 

Instructions:

Fill half a cup with boiling water.
Add three teaspoons of gelatin to the boiling water.
Let it soften before stirring with a fork.
Add a quarter of a cup of corn syrup.
Stir the mixture again with your fork and look at the long strands of gunk that have formed.
As the mixture cools slowly add more water, small amounts at a time.
 

What's happening?

Mucus is made mostly of sugars and protein. Although different than the ones found in the real thing, this is exactly what you used to make your fake snot. The long, fine strings you could see inside your fake snot when you moved it around are protein strands. These protein strands make snot sticky and capable of stretching.

 

[MysteRy]

Make a Tornado in a Bottle

Learn how to make a tornado in a bottle with this fun science experiment for kids. Using easy to find items such as dish washing liquid, water, glitter and a bottle you can make your own mini tornado that’s a lot safer than one you might see on the weather channel. Follow the instructions and enjoy the cool water vortex you create!

What you'll need:

Water
A clear plastic bottle with a cap (that won't leak)
Glitter
Dish washing liquid
 

Instructions:

Fill the plastic bottle with water until it reaches around three quarters full.
Add a few drops of dish washing liquid.
Sprinkle in a few pinches of glitter (this will make your tornado easier to see).
Put the cap on tightly.
Turn the bottle upside down and hold it by the neck. Quickly spin the bottle in a circular motion for a few seconds, stop and look inside to see if you can see a mini tornado forming in the water. You might need to try it a few times before you get it working properly.
 

What's happening?

Spinning the bottle in a circular motion creates a water vortex that looks like a mini tornado. The water is rapidly spinning around the center of the vortex due to centripetal force (an inward force directing an object or fluid such as water towards the center of its circular path). Vortexes found in nature include tornadoes, hurricanes and waterspouts (a tornado that forms over water).