A Collection of Gooey, Explosive and Easy Science Projects to Do at Home
Memories of high school biology labs gone awry, days spent memorizing the table of elements and endless lectures have left many parents feeling uncertain about their ability to encourage a love of science in their children. After all, how can we excite our kids about a subject that we find so daunting? Relax! Science doesn’t have to start with lectures and lessons. Learning can even start with what looks like summer playtime and day trips.
Wonder Drives Knowledge
As a matter of fact, Randy Bell, former program coordinator for science education at the Curry School of Education (now a dean at Oregon State University), suggests that children be allowed plenty of time to explore before being introduced to the facts. “When children can explore a concept first,” says Bell, “they become more engaged and able to think for themselves when the idea is pursued further.”
Even very young children can surprise adults with their enthusiasm for scientific learning and can soak up ideas like sponges, says Nancy Newman, an outreach educator with the Virginia Museum of Natural History. She says science experiences are important for young children. “Finding out about textures, amounts, weight, length, opposites, magnification and life cycles all help children explore, develop vocabulary, think about possibilities, understand there are multiple answers sometimes and that a scientist asks questions and tries to find solutions.”
The World Is A Science Experiment
Both Bell and Newman suggest getting in tune with nature as a means for introducing science. Participating in a bird walk, feeling the wind, listening to the leaves in trees and kicking up dry leaves on the ground all help children to be more aware of their surroundings. “Becoming an observer of nature helps with observing the world in general,” says Newman. “However,” she notes, “parents need to get over their reluctance to pick up a worm, to watch a bee drinking nectar of gathering pollen, watch a snake slither by or hold a toad. They must set examples. “Fears — like prejudices — are learned from adults.” Treat the whole world like a classroom and let your child take the lead.
A child’s innate need to explore and discover will inevitably lead to experimentation. Whether indoors or out, you’ve probably noticed that even the youngest of children will mix and pour, blend and stir. They will discover that water almost always flows freely, whereas sand only flows when dry.
The following easy science projects offer the opportunity to experiment with some simple science concepts, using items you probably have around the house. Make every effort to allow as much hands-on experimenting as possible with these projects. Sure, there may be a few spills if you let the kids do the mixing, but the learning that happens by allowing them to decide “how much” and “when” is just as valuable as the science itself. Some of the simpler projects included are suitable even for preschool-aged children. Of course, when using sharp instruments or matches, caution should be used and there should always be an adult on hand.
A child’s innate need to explore and discover will inevitably lead to experimentation.
Water Bottle Wonder Science Project
Science Materials: small nail, plastic water bottle, water, food coloring
Using a small nail, poke three or four holes around a plastic water bottle, about 1 inch from the bottom. (Heating the tip of the nail will make this easier.) Fill each bottle with colored water, and then replace the cap. Set the bottles out on a table and encourage your kids to investigate. They will quickly find that opening the cap (thereby letting air into the bottle) allows the water to flow freely from the holes. When capped, it stops.
Make A Tornado in a Bottle Experiment
Science Materials: drill with 3/8-inch bit, two 2-liter bottles, water, glue
Make a tornado using two 2-liter soda bottles. Drill a 3/8-inch hole in both bottle caps, making sure that they are aligned. Glue caps together, taping to reinforce. Screw this double lid onto a bottle full of water. Invert the other empty bottle, and screw onto other end. To make the tornado flow, turn the connected bottles upside down and swirl the bottles in a circular motion a few times. As the water from the top bottle escapes to the bottom bottle, the water will create a funnel that looks quite like a tornado.
Mix Homemade Oobleck
Science Materials: water, shallow tray, cornstarch
Water and cornstarch make an intriguing substance that will keep kids of all ages — and adults! — busy for hours. For each child, provide one cup each of cornstarch and water, a shallow tray for mixing and spoons for stirring. (Hands are good for this too!) Have kids blend the water and cornstarch. Some kids will mix a spoonful at a time, whereas others will dump it all at once. Either way is fine. You may need to add a bit more water or cornstarch to get the mixture just right. When the cornstarch and water are entirely mixed, the consistency will be unusual. It will appear to be a liquid, yet when pressure is applied it feels like a solid. BACON, Charlottesville High School’s Best All-Around Club of Nerds, filled a trough with ooblek and walked on it! See the video here.
Milk that Mooooves Science Project
Science Materials: whole milk, shallow bowl, food coloring, liquid dish soap, toothpicks, other milk products (optional)
Pour about 1/4 cup of whole milk into a shallow bowl. Place several drops of food coloring onto the milk in the container. Dip a toothpick into liquid dish soap and touch the toothpick into the middle of the dish. You should see the colors begin to swirl across the surface of the milk.
Putting the soap into the milk breaks up the milk fat and lets the fat move around the surface of the milk. See what happens if you try it with nonfat milk or half-and-half. Does the fat content alter the results?
Water and cornstarch make an intriguing substance that will keep kids of all ages — and adults! — busy for hours.
Make Science with Borax Crystals
Science Materials: pipe cleaners, string, a wide-mouth jar, boiling water (with adult help), borax (such as 20 Mule Team Borax), pencil
What makes a crystal a crystal? It is a solid with a symmetrical shape and flat sides, due to the arrangement of its molecules in a repeating pattern. Snowflakes are examples of a crystal; they always have six sides. With this easy experiment, you can see firsthand how crystals form over a few days. Twist pipe cleaners into the desired shape. Try wrapping one around a pencil to create a spiral or bend one into a star shape. Attach a short length of string to the pipe cleaner and tie the other end to a pencil. Fill a wide-mouth jar with boiling water. Mix borax into the water one tablespoon at a time. You will use about 3 tablespoons of borax per cup of water. Stir in each addition of borax until dissolved.
When you can no longer dissolve any more borax in the water, the water is saturated with borax, and you are ready to grow a crystal! Insert your pipe cleaner shape into the jar of water so that it hangs suspended from the pencil but submerged in the water. Place the jar in a safe place where it won’t be disturbed for two or three days.
Hot water holds more borax crystals than cold water. As heated water molecules move farther apart, they make room for more borax crystals to dissolve. This is saturation. As the borax solution cools, the water molecules move closer together again, leaving less room for the dissolved borax, which creates crystals on the pipe cleaner.
Magical Chromatography Science Experiment
Science Materials: paper coffee filters, water-soluble food coloring, baby food jars, water, watercolors markers and tempera paint (optional)
Cut a coffee filter into a few 1-inch strips. On one end of each strip, place one drop each of two or three different colors. (Combination colors, such as black, brown and green work especially well.) After the drops have dried, fill a baby food jar halfway with water. Place the coffee filter in the jar with the colored dot out of the water. The water will slowly soak up to the color dot and dissolve it. Wait for the dot to be completely dissolved before removing from the baby food jar and allowing it to dry.
The different colored pigments will travel at different speeds and separate into different bands of colors. Some of them will dissolve quickly and move up the paper very fast while others will be slow moving. You might also fill baby food jars with colored water and watch it travel up an unstained filter from the bottom. Droplets of food coloring on a paper towel will separate. Instead of food coloring, try watercolors, markers and tempera paint and see what happens.
Egg in a Bottle Science Project
Science Materials: a hard-boiled egg, peeled, a glass bottle with a wide mouth, paper, matches (with adult help)
Make sure your egg can rest on the opening of the bottle without falling in. Crumple the piece of paper and push it into the bottle. Drop a lit match onto the paper. When it ignites, set the egg onto the mouth of the bottle. As the fire burns, the egg will be sucked down into the bottle.
Heat from the burning paper causes the air in the bottle to expand. Some of it will be forced out. As the air inside the bottle cools, the pressure inside is reduced. The outside air, with its greater pressure, pushes the egg into the bottle.
Float Your Boat Science Experiment
Science Materials: water, a dinner plate, a cork that is cut in half lengthwise, toothpick or skewer, 3 birthday candles, matches (with adult help), a glass
Pour about ½ cup of water onto dinner plate; the depth should be about ¼ inch. With a toothpick or skewer, make three holes in rounded portion of cork. Put candles into holes, keeping them upright. Float cork “boat” on the water and light candles. Gently set a glass over the cork with the candles burning. Watch as the water — and cork boat — rises up from the plate and into the glass.
The same principles that sucked the egg into the bottle are at work here. The only difference is that the water is being pulled up, rather than being pushed down.
Curiosity is Contagious
Beginning to wonder if maybe — just maybe — you missed out on some cool stuff in your school science labs? The Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia is working to change that. By training teachers to incorporate more hands-on activities in their science units, the faculty hopes that students will become more engaged in their learning and think for themselves. How can parents aid this process? Invite your children to join you in an activity that you enjoy. Whether you choose nature walks, star gazing or concocting in the kitchen, when you share your excitement with your kids, you pass on an infectious interest and a desire to learn more. What more could a student need? Find more science and math games as well as science day trips at CharlottesvilleFamily.
KRIS BORDESSA has written for both national and regional magazines, including Parenting, FamilyFun, American Girl and Home Education Magazine.
