Materials

• 1 -2 liter soda bottle (any bottle is fine but we've seen soda bottles work best)

• 3 pencils/popsicle sticks/plain wooden sticks 

• Duct tape (works best for sticking for a long time)

• A cork that can plug into the nozzle of the bottle

• Funnel/Paper

• Baking soda

• Vinegar (preferably a lot!!)

Steps

1. Take your soda bottle and tape the 3 "sticks" (whatever you had) to the side of the bottle, so that the bottle is able to stand upright and the cap is facing downwards. (Use a good amount of tape to make sure it is nicely secure - remember the bottle full of vinegar is going to be standing on these legs)

2. Now move your rocket and the rest of the supplies to your launching site. 

3. Fill the rocket 1/3 full of vinegar, and construct a funnel out of wrapping a piece of paper in a cylindrical form.

4. THIS PART YOU MUST ACT FAST - Pour baking soda into the bottle until you see a slight fizz and cap it off with cork. Then flip it till its standing on its legs (Be sure not to make it too tight or else it won't blast off!!)

5. Now set the contraption on a flat surface and watch it BLAST OFF!! 

Explanation

As you can tell there had to be some sort of reaction right? If you said yes, then you are absolutely correct! Baking soda, NaHCO3, and Vinegar, HCH3COO, when mixed actually form two different reactions. In the first reaction carbonic acid is formed which then quickly breaks down into water and carbon dioxide gas. When a good amount of CO2 is formed and trapped in the bottle, the pressure inside the bottle pushes the cork out, therefore releasing all the gas in a steady stream. Then, due to Newton's 3rd Law of Motion (for every action - the gas and liquid pushing out of the bottle- there is an equally opposite reaction - BLASTOFF!!)

Disclaimer: There are sharp objects and electricity involved in this experiment so parent-supervision is advised

Materials:

• Large iron nail (3-4 inches)

• Around 3 feet or more worth of thin coated copper wiring

• D size battery

• Tape

• Paperclips or any other metal magnetic objects around the house

Steps:

1. Take the copper wiring and wrap most of it around the nail (making sure not to overlap each wrap) leaving around 5-8 inches of copper wire perpendicular from each side of the nail

2. Remove around an inch of the plastic coating on each side of the wire you left unwrapped

3. Take both ends and place each side on a side of the battery

4. Tape each side down (be sure to do these steps fairly quickly--with adult supervision of course--because the wires can start getting extremely hot!!)

5. Now that you have your electromagnet you can use it to pick up any of the metal scraps you collected earlier!!

Optional Steps:

If you would like to take this experiment one step further try changing these variables and see what difference it makes:

• The number of times you wrapped the wire around the nail

• The thickness of the nail

• The thickness of the wire

• Thickness of the coating on the wire

• Attaching multiple batteries in parallel (this requires a little bit more complicated wiring so you don't end up short circuiting--so be careful!!)

Explanation:

To understand what an electromagnet is you must first understand what a magnet is. A magnet is any object that produces a magnetic field that attracts like molecules. We used iron in this experiment, but there are other metals that show magnetic properties (one of the most prevalent being iron). These magnets however can't be turned on and off like an electromagnet can because they naturally emit a magnetic field, but that's not the case with an electromagnet. In an electromagnet (like the one we have created) electricity is used to align the atoms in a particular position that allows it to attract other atoms. As for the shape of the electromagnet, previous scientists before us have proven that coiling the wires has shown to be the most effective way to make a strong magnetic field. Now that you know the basics, have fun, experiment, and stay safe!!

Materials

• 100 ml of Water (cold)

• 400 ml of White Vinegar

• 10 ml of Dish Soap

• Empty 2 Liter Soda Bottle

• 1/2 a cup of Baking Soda

• Tap Water on hand

Steps

1. Pour the 1/2 cup of baking soda into a 1 cup measuring cup and fill the other half with tap water.

2. Combine the cold water, baking soda slurry, white vinegar, and dish soap in the empty bottle.

3. Place the bottle outside step back and observe!

The Reasoning Behind the Result

If the experiment went to plan, what you should have seen is an eruption of the solution out of the soda bottle. Why is that? Basic Chemistry! When the baking soda and white vinegar hit each other in the bottle, they combine to produce a gas called carbon dioxide. This gas is created with a lot of force behind it, and it wants to leave the constraining bottle as fast as possible. As the only opening out of the bottle is at the top, the gas quickly ejects out of the bottle, taking the solution with it, and causing an eruption.

Materials:

• Comb

• Running Faucet

• Dry hair

Steps:

1. Turn on the faucet until water is coming out at a thin and steady pace

2. Take the comb and run it through your hair for 30 seconds to a minute

3. Then slowly and without touching the stream water bring the comb near the water

Explanation:

You should have seen the water bend towards the comb. This is because of static electricity. By running the comb through your hair, you have built up a static charge on the comb. The comb is given a negative charge while the hair it was touching was given a positive charge. When the comb is brought near the water, the negative charge on the comb is attracted to the opposite positive charges in the water. This pulls the water towards the comb causing the water to bend.

Materials:

• 1 tablespoon of baking soda

• 2 fl oz of contact solution (have more handy)

• 2 fl oz of Elmer’s School Glue

Mixing Bowl

Optional: Any food coloring or glitter

Steps:

1. In the mixing bowl add the table spoon of baking soda and 2 fl oz of elmer's glue and mix till consistent

2. Add the food coloring and glitter of your choice and mix till consistent

3. Add the 2 fl oz of contact solution and continuing mixing till the substance becomes slimy and more solid

4. If the slime is too sticky add more contact solution till its consistency you prefer

5. Finally use your hands to mix the slime till all the ingredients are equally distributed among it

6. Viola, you now have yourself some slime

Explanation:

Believe it not there is still science in something like slime. Slime is a substance that is formed when the molecules form large chains called polymers. When we add the contact solution to the mixture, we are reconstructing the molecules of the baking soda and elmer glue mixture to form long chains. As a result of the formation of long chains, we get slime

Materials:

• Shaving Cream

• A large glass

• water

• Food coloring

• A spoon

Steps:

1. Fill the glass 1/2 full with water. 

2. Spray some shaving cream on top of the water to fill the glass to 3/4 full.

3. Use your finger or a spoon to spread the shaving cream evenly over the top of the water. The top of the shaving cream should be flat.

4. Mix ½-cup water with 10 drops of food coloring in a separate container. Gently add the colored water, spoonful by spoonful, to the top of the shaving cream. When it gets too heavy, watch it storm.

Explanation:

Just like the shaving cream in the experiment, clouds in real life hold onto water (some can hold millions of gallons). Once clouds get too heavy, the water falls to the ground as rain, snow, sleet or hail, depending on how cold the water is. In our experiment, once the shaving cream got too heavy, the water fell to the bottom of the glass, and it resembled a storm.

Materials:

• A glass plate, bowl or picture frame

• Dry erase marker

• Water

Steps:

1. Draw a simple picture on the glass. 

2. Pour water onto the plate or in the bowl and watch the picture rise up. 

3. Swirl the water around to make the picture move. 

Explanation:

The marker leaves behind a mixture of pigments and a type of alcohol. The alcohol dissolves and the pigments are left as a solid. Because the glass is smooth, the solid slides off when the water touches the glass, and the drawing looks like it’s moving.

Materials:

• 3 Empty Cups (clear is better)

• Water

• Yellow Food Coloring

• Blue Food Coloring

• 2 Paper Towel Sheets

Steps:

1. Fill 2 of the 3 cups with water

2. Put2 drops of yellow food coloring in one cup and 2 drops of blue food coloring in the other cup

3. Organize the 3 cups so that the empty cup is in between the 2 cups with water

4. Fold both paper towel sheets in half twice the same way, so it looks like a long rectangle

5. Fold the long rectangle paper towel sheets in half again, hamburger style (shouldn't be a long rectangle)

6. Place one paper towel so that one end is in the yellow water and the other end is in the empty cup, do the same with the other paper towel and blue cup

7. Leave the cups for 24 hours and come back to see the magic

What Should Happen: The cup that was once empty should now have water form the other two cups and because it was blue and yellow water, the cup in the middle should have green water

Explanation:

The water was able to move into the empty cups through a process called capillary action. This is because the paper towels are made of tiny fibers, the gaps between these fibers create tubes that the water is able to travel up through. Due to the forces between the water and the fibers being stronger than gravity, the water was able to move up even though gravity pulls things down. This is the same process that plants use to bring water from its roots up to the rest of the plant.

Materials

• Glass Jar

• Four Ice Cubes

• Ceramic Plate

• Hot Water (with parental help)

Steps

1. Pour hot water into glass jar

2. Cover jar with face up ceramic plate

3. Wait 3 minutes

4. Place ice cubes on top of ceramic plate

5. Wait and observe!

Explanation of What You Should've Seen

If everything panned out, you should have seen a homemade water cycle taking place in the jar. Why is this happening? The water cycle takes place due to a combination of the warm air in the jar and the moisture caused by the cold plate above the jar. This interaction is a micro chasm of what goes on in the atmosphere, so like the atmosphere, a water cycle will then occur.

Materials:

• Empty water bottle (preferably a smooth sided one)

• Water

• Vegetable Oil

• Fizzing Tablets (Alka Seltzer has proven to work well)

• Food coloring (of your choice)

• Flashlight

Steps:

1. Fill your bottle up till about a quarter of it is filled

2. Add vegetable oil to your bottle until almost full

3. Wait for the two substances to separate completely (this is key!!)

4. Add a couple drops of food coloring through and wait for them to dissolve into the water

5. Put half of the fizzy tablet into the bottle

6. Turn off the lights, shine a flashlight through the bottle, and enjoy your new DIY lava lamp!!

Explanation

In this project you tend to see the fundamentals of density in play. If you noticed, when you added the food coloring to the bottle, after a while, it only dissolved to the substance at the bottom. We know food coloring is is not soluble in oil, meaning that it had to have dissolved in the water. Why is the water at the bottom you ask? It's because water is much more dense than oil. This means it tends to eventually settle at the bottom. The fizzing tablet you added to the water releases carbon dioxide when it dissolves, and as gases are lighter than liquids, the tiny blobs float up to the top. These little air pockets sometimes capture little bits of water with coloring, and when the bubble pops at the top the heavier water sinks back to the bottom. This repeats until the tablet is fully dissolved.

Materials:

• One Egg (can be of any kind)

• One and one half cups of water

• One half cup of salt

• 2 containers

Steps

1. Take egg out of its carton, and allow it to warm to room temperature

2. Pour 3 quarters of a cup of water into one container, and label the container "no salt"

3. Pour 3 quarters of a cup of water into the other container, and label it "salt"

4. Add half a cup of salt into the salt container, and stir thoroughly

5. Place the egg in the no salt container

6. Check to see if the egg floats, or if it sinks (hint: it should sink!)

7. Take egg out of water

8. Place egg in salt container

9. Check to see if the egg floats, or if it sinks (hint: it should float!)

Explanation

In this experiment, you can see the principles of density and buoyancy at play. Why did the egg sink in the "no salt" container, and why did it float in the salty bowl? The reason is density. Density is basically how much mass a material has per a certain volume of a substance. Whenever an object goes into a pool of surrounding liquid, it will float if it has a lower density than the liquid, and it will sink if it has a higher density than the solution. In the "no salt" container, the egg has a higher density than the pure water, which is why it sunk. However, the addition of salt with water caused its density to increase, and become larger than the density of the egg. This is why the egg floated in this solution. 

Materials:

• Lemons (2)

• Baking Soda

• Dish Soap

• Spoons

• Craft Stick

Procedure

1. Ask your parent to slice the bottom of the lemon off, allowing the lemon to sit by itself on your surface

2. Then ask your parent flip the lemon to the untouched side and slice out the core of the lemon

3.  Take the craft stick and mash the inside of this lemon to the point where the juices of the lemon are inside the hole of the fruit

4. Take the other lemon, ask a parent to cut it open, and squeeze the juice of that lemon into the cored lemon

5. Add some dish soap to the cored lemon

6. Add a spoonful of baking soda to the lemon

7. Observe

What Should You Have Seen

If everything went as planned, you should have seen a fizzy reaction happening inside the lemon!

Explanation

This reaction is due to the high volumes of citric acid that is found in lemons. Citric acid is an organic acid that is found in citric fruits, such as lemon and limes. It is also heavily used in soft drinks, as well as flavoring in foods. When this acid interacts with baking soda in the lemon, sodium citrate and carbon dioxide form as products. This product fizzes, which can be seen in the visible reaction.

Materials:

• 1 cup cornstarch

• 1 cup shaving cream

• Food coloring

Steps:

1. Pour the cup of cornstarch into a large bowl. Use a spoon to scoop the shaving cream on top of it. Put 5-10 drops of food coloring on top. Stir to mix.

2. When the mixture looks like grated cheese, use your hands to squish the mixture even more.

3. Pretty soon the shaving cream and cornstarch will form a ball, about the same texture as dough.

4. If your mixture is really wet and sticky after mixing, it needs a little more corn starch. If it won’t stick together and falls into pieces, add a little more shaving cream.

5. It should now look like snow! Try making snowmen or snow angels. 

Explanation:

The tiny pieces of corn starch get mixed into the shaving cream. Shaving cream is made up of tiny bubbles, and the surface tension on the surface of the bubbles helps ‘float’ the corn starch particles when they both mix, which gives the illusion of real-life snow.

Materials:

• A mug

• 5 cups

• A tablespoon

• A clear glass

• A dropper/pipette

• Water

Steps:

1. Separate the Skittles into the cups, in these amounts: 2 red, 4 orange, 6 yellow, 8 green, and 10 purple.

2. Heat a mug of water in the microwave for a minute and a half (not boiling). Be careful removing the water from the microwave.

3. Pour two tablespoons of hot water into each cup, on top of the Skittles.

4. Stir each cup carefully every ten minutes or so until the Skittles are dissolved and the water is room temperature.

5. Using the dropper, add the colored water from the five cups to the clear glass (slowly, so the colors don’t mix). Start with purple, then add green, then yellow, orange, and red last.

Explanation:

Skittles are made of sugar. When you add hot water to them, the sugar dissolves and the coloring on the shell of the Skittles turns the water different colors. The cup with only two red Skittles doesn’t have as much sugar as the cup with ten purple Skittles, but they both have the same amount of water. The amount of matter packed into a certain amount of space is called the density. The red water is less dense than the purple water, so it will float on top of the purple water, and thus our rainbow is created.

Materials:

• Ivory soap

• Microwavable bowl

Steps:

1. Place the bar of soap in the bowl, and microwave it for two minutes.

2. Wait 2 minutes for the bowl and foam to cool.

3. The soap should now be overfilling the bowl!

Explanation:

Ivory soap has air bubbles inside of it. As the air bubbles are heated in the microwave, they get bigger. The soap is a solid, so once it expands, it stays expanded, which makes the soap so much bigger than it was in the beginning.

Materials:

• 1 package of gelatin dessert mixture (such as Jell-O, preferably light colors)

• 3/4 cup of water in a mug

• Round-bottomed measuring spoons and measuring cups

• A paper towel

• A cutting board

Steps:

1. Heat 3/4 cup of water in the microwave for a minute and a half.

2. Pour the gelatin powder into a bowl, then pour the hot water over the powder. Mix them together for two minutes.

3. Let the liquid cool for ten minutes.

4. Cover a cutting board with a paper towel.

5. Scoop out some liquid with the small measuring spoons, then place them on the paper towel.

6. To fill the larger measuring cups, place the empty cups on the paper towel and carefully pour the gelatin liquid in. 

7. Move your tray or cutting board to the fridge. Wait 4 hours for it to cool.

8. After four hours, you can gently remove your lenses from the spoons and cups. Wash your hands in the sink before you touch them.

9. Add a little water to the bottom of a glass plate or bowl. Then place a lens inside, flat side down.

10. Now you can move the lens over various things, just like a real magnifying glass!

Explanation:

Lenses bend light as it moves through them. The gelatin does the same thing. As the light bends, the objects on the other side of the “lens” appear to be larger. 

Materials:

• 1 balloon

• 2 pieces of tape

• 1 small needle

Steps:

1. Fill up your balloon with air. 

2. Using the 2 pieces of tape, make an “X” on the side of the balloon. 

3. Push the needle through the “X.” The balloon didn’t pop!

Explanation:

Catastrophic crack propagation is what causes a balloon to pop. This means that the hole in the balloon getting bigger is what makes the balloon pop. When the balloon’s hole gets bigger, it rips and the balloon pops. Here, the tape stops this from happening, at least for a short period of time. 

Materials:

• Bag of chocolate coins

• Paper plates

• Pen

• Paper

• A watch, clock, or timer

• A clear plastic cup

• black marker

Steps:

1. Place each chocolate coin, with the foil off, on a separate paper plate.

2. Place paper plates in different spots in the house:

   • 1 white paper plate with just the chocolate coin

   • 1 white paper plate, with a clear plastic cup over it, covering the coin to allow it to trap some heat

   • 1 black paper plate

3. Using your time keeping device, pen, and paper, record how long it takes the chocolate to melt in each situation. 

Explanation:

At a certain temperature some of your chocolate coins went through a physical change from a solid to a liquid, which is called melting. Energy was added to the chocolate by either sunlight or heat and this energy caused the molecules that make up the solid chocolate to move about and spread out and become a liquid.

Materials:

• Lemon Juice

• Dirty Pennies

• A cup

• Paper Towel

Steps:

1. Put a dirty penny in a cup and cover it with lemon juice.

2. Wait about five minutes then remove the penny and wipe it off with a paper towel.

Explanation:

Pennies are made out of copper. The copper mixes with oxygen. This causes oxidation and makes the penny look dirty. Lemon juice has acid in it that removes the dirty color or oxidation and makes the penny nice and shiny again!

Materials:

• Straight stick about two feet long

• small rocks

• a watch

Steps:

1. Find a sunny spot and push the stick straight into the grass.

2. At 7:00 AM, use a small rock to mark where the shadow of your stick falls. Come back at 8:00 AM, 9:00 AM, 10:00 AM, and so on until there is no more daylight.

3. By the end of the day your sundial will be complete.

Explanation:

The sun’s light will cause your stick to cast a shadow. The shadow will change its angle depending how the sun’s light is hitting the stick because our earth is constantly rotating and revolving.

Materials:

• One balloon

Steps:

1. Blow up the balloon so that it is filled with air

2. Hold the balloon up to your ear.

3. Lightly tap the other side of the balloon with your finger. You should hear the tap much better. 

Explanation:

When you blow into the balloon you are pushing air molecules into the balloon. They are forced to be close together. This allows the air molecules to carry the sound waves better. 

Materials:

• Water

• Oil

• Food Coloring 

• 2 16 oz clear glasses

• A Fork

Steps:

1. Fill one glass almost to the top with room-temperature water.

2. Pour 2 tablespoons of oil into the other glass.

3. Add 2 drops of food coloring to the glass with the oil.

4. Stir the oil into the food coloring using a fork. Stop once you break the food coloring into smaller drops.

5. Pour the oil and coloring mixture into the tall glass.

6. It should look like fireworks are going on inside the glass. 

Explanation:

Food coloring dissolves in water, but not in oil. So when you pour in your food coloring/oil, the oil will float at the top of the water because it is less dense, and the food coloring will begin to dissolve once they sink through the oil and into the water.

Materials:

• 1 pinto bean

• 1 Ziploc bag

• 1 paper towel

• Spray bottle for holding water

Steps:

1. Make paper towel wet with spray bottle

2. Place wet paper towel in Ziploc Bag

3. Place bean on top of wet paper towel

4. Close Ziploc and place in a warm, sunny spot

5. Add water to paper towel when it dries out

6. Observe your plant growing in 3-5 days!

Explanation:

Germination is happening, meaning the plant is sprouting it’s roots. Since the ziploc is clear, you can see the roots growing.