SIPs for Kids

7/29/2019 SIPs for Kids

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Project #1:

Soda Chemistry

This easy science experiment is a classic. All you need is a roll of Mentos and a bottleof Diet Coke.

MATERIALS:

1 roll of peppermint Mentos

a 2-liter bottle of diet coke

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Couldnt be simpler just unroll the Mentos and drop them into the coke all at once.

2. Watch the fireworks!

3. Can you explain why the candy and the soda reacted this way? What must be

happening inside the bottle in order to cause this fountain of sugary soda?

*HINT FOR ADULTS: Try to lead the child to an understanding of the chemical process

of gas being released inside the bottle.

The reason the coke shoots out the top is because the Mentos have dissolved into a

high-pressure gas that then needs to escape, bringing the Coke with it (this is not strictly

scientifically accurate, but it is a close analogy that young kids will readily grasp). Youcan also expand this easy science experiment by placing your thumb over the top of the

bottle when the Coke sprays out. Can the child explain why the fountain shoots higher

when you do this?


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Project #2:

Backyard Ecosystem

An exciting experience for young naturalists, this easy science experiment involves onlyyour own eyes and ears, and a backyard or park to observe.

MATERIALS:

o Park, large backyard, or other nature area

o Pencil and paper

o Magnifying glass

o Binoculars (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Start by just listening. Close your eyes and stand in one spot for several seconds.

How many different sounds can you hear? Are there birds? Bugs? People? Write down

a list of the sounds you hear.

2. Next, make a heading on your paper for Animals. Keep an eye out for birds and

mammals while you look around the area. How many different species can you see?

Animals can come and go very quickly, so keep your eyes peeled while you are working

on the other steps, and add to the list as you go

3. Make a heading on your paper for Large Plants. Spend some time looking around

the area for different kinds of trees and bushes. How many different types can you

identify? How do you know which ones are the same type?

4. The next heading should be small plants and animals. Pick out one small area

(maybe three feet on a side) and try to count all the small plants in that area. Are there

flowers? Shrubs? Vines? Grasses? Use your magnifying glass to observe the plants in

detail. Try drawing a few. While you are working on this step, keep an eye out for

insects and other small animals that may be crawling among the plants. Write them all

down on your list.

5. When you are done, count up all the species you found? Are you surprised how

many you saw in just a small space?

*HINTS FOR ADULTS: Depending on the age of the child, this may be a good time to

introduce some ideas about taxonomy. What is the difference between a mammal and a


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bird? Why is a worm not considered a type of insect? These easy science experiments

are great ways to introduce some age-appropriate knowledge of evolution, as well.


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Project #1:

Shape and Weight

In this very simple science experiment for kids, well ask whether two objects with

different shape but the same weight fall at the same rate.

MATERIALS:

Aluminum foil

Permanent

Postal scale (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Come up with your hypothesis do you think two objects that weigh the same will fall

at different rates if they are different shapes? Why or why not?

2. Cut out two squares of aluminum foil roughly 8-12 inches on a side. Make sure they

are the same size!

3. Fold your aluminum squares in half and crease the fold.

4. Label one of the pieces 1 and the other 2

5. OPTIONAL: If you have a postal scale, weigh the two pieces of aluminum foil to make

sure they are the same weight

6. Hold the two pieces of aluminum at the same height and drop them. Record which

one hits the ground first. If they seem to hit at the same time, write down tie

7. Repeat step 5 until you have done it 10 times which one hit the ground first the

most often? What was the percentage of the time that it hit first?

8. Now roll one of the pieces of aluminum into a small ball. Repeat step 5 until you have

done it 10 times.

9. Did that change the results? Or did it change the percentage? Was your hypothesis

confirmed?

*TIP: you can expand on this project by trying out different shapes with the aluminum

foil: try folding one into an airplane shape, or into a star! Many science projects for kids

can be generated based on this model.


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Project #2:

Center of Mass

Here are additional science projects for kids that teach the principle of center of mass,

which determines whether an object falls down or stays up.

MATERIALS:

1 ping-pong ball

2 squares of white paper (roughly 34 inches)

modeling clay

tape

marker

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Cut the ping-pong ball in half.

2. Fill one half of the ping-pong ball about 2/3 of the way up with modeling clay

3. Draw faces and arms on the pieces of paper keep in mind that they will be rolled

into tubes, and try to draw accordingly (adults can pencil-in templates to ensure proper

spacing)

4. Roll up the pieces of paper and place them inside the halves of the ping-pong ball.Secure with tape.

5. Do the clowns stand up? Do they fall down? Can you explain why?

*TIP: Other science projects for kids can be to repeat the experiment with two more

clowns. In this variant, the other two clowns will have caps made of halved ping-pong

balls. One cap will have clay in it, the other not does this change the results?


6/18

Growing Crystal Geodes A Cool Science Experiment for Kids

Materials

Alum powder

You have to make sure you get the right kind of alum powder, potassium

aluminum sulfate. Some commercial alum contains potassium, and some

doesnt. If you get the kind without potassium, your crystals will not grow. I got

mine from Talas, the company recommended on the original website. Theirs will

for sure work.

Eggshells or plastic eggs

We used a combination of real eggshells, broken in half, and plastic Easter

eggs. You can scrutinize our finished eggs in the slideshow below, but I dont

think there was a difference between the crystals grown in the plastic and realeggs. They all came out really well.

The geodes would look better if you cut the egg lengthwise, but have you ever

tried to break an egg lengthwise? Its pretty close to impossible. Joe did blow out

an egg and cut it in half lengthwise with his Dreme l thing, but thats a lot of work.

I guess if you want to make perfect geodes or if youre doing this for a science

project, you might want to go to those great lengths, but we were just doing this

for fun (and to share with you).

Glue

Im pretty sure thatany old glue will work. We used cow glue (thats what Grace

calls Elmers).

Youre going to coat the inside of every eggshell or plastic egg with glue, so youll

need a lot of it.

Paintbrush

You only need this to paint on the glue.

Dont forget to wash the glue off before it dries. If you forget, you might as well

throw the paintbrush away. Ask me how I know.

A box or something else to put your eggs in to dry

Wet alum crystals are very delicate. In fact, you may knock some crystals off

when you pick the wet geode up out of the solution. You will want some kind of

container that will allow each geode to dry without being jostled.


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The box we used was sent to us by International Delight, the creamer company. I

dont know if you can buy these boxes in the store or not. It was really handy

both for drying and for storing our geodes.

If youre having trouble coming up with something, you could cut rings off of a

toilet paper roll, and set the wet eggs in the rings. The rings would be about the

right size and shape, and they would hold the geodes up off of the table or

countertop.

A 4-cup bowl This is to mix the solution in.

A spoon or whisk For mixing the solution

A measuring cup You will need to measure 3/4 of a cup of alum powder.

Sorry that I only put the consumables in the picture. I didnt think about the bowls and

stuff, but they are obviously necessary.

Before You Can Grow Crystals

This is like Step 0.

The day before you want to grow crystals, you have to prepare your eggs. You have to

do it the day before to allow the glue to dry. I suppose you could just wait a few hours,

but the glue really needs to be dry and hardened before you put it in the alum solution.

First, paint the eggshells with a thin layer of glue. If you want crystals to grow around

the edge (for a less authentic, but cooler-looking geode), make sure to paint a little glue

on the outside of the rim of the eggshell.


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A thinner coat is better, but as you can see, its not a make or break issue.

Both of my kids were thrilled to paint eggshells with glue, so I let them go at it. I did have

to remove 2/3 of the glue afterward to avoid deep puddles in the bottom of each egg.

Puddles wont do.

While the glue is still wet, sprinkle the egg with alum powder.


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Alternately, you can fill the eggshell up with alum powder, roll it around, and dump the

powder back out. I dont recommend this method, but its what we did for most of our

eggs. My kids are too little to understand sprinkle; theyre dumpers.

Dont neglect the glue on the outside of the egg. You can turn the egg over into a small

bowl of alum powder to get this part.

Do this for a whole bunch of eggshells at once. Its a little messy, and you dont want to

go back and do it every day or two, one eggshell at a time. That would be a serious pain

in the neck.

Now We Can Grow Crystal Geodes

Okay, so youve let those eggs dry overnight. Now youre ready to make your alum

solution.


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If you want to use dye, stir it into 2 cups of water. We used Easter egg dye once and

food coloring a couple of times. Neither of them worked particularly well. Martha Stewart

recommends an expensive powdered egg dye that is supposed to get better results, but

I wasnt willing to shell out the dough for it.

I liked the clear crystals best anyway.

Heat the water to almost boiling. I put mine in the microwave for 5 minutes. It think it

boils during that time, but as soon as I open the microwave door, it quits. Works for me.

Pour 3/4 cup of alum powder into the water and stir it for longer than you think is

necessary. If there are any crystals in the bottom, you need to either stir longer or

reheat the solution or both. I usually put mine back in the microwave for 2 minutes, and

all the extra crystals dissolved.


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The idea here is that you want a saturated solution. In other words, you want the water

to be holding as much alum powder as it can possibly hold.

Theres a fine line between saturated and crystals sitting around in the bottom of the

bowl. If there are crystals in the bottom of the bowl, they will draw the alum away from

your geodes, and the crystals in your geode wont get as big.

If theres anything else in the bowl dust, bits of glue, unidentified floaters strain the

solution with a strainer. Its important that there arent extraneous bits floating around in

there. (I had to strain ours a couple of times.)

On the other hand, if your solution isnt saturated, when you put your alum powder-

coated egg in the water, the alum powder will dissolve and your egg will be bare. That


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happened to one or two of our eggs. They still got crystals inside, but they didnt cover

the whole egg, just the bottom where they settled out.

The good thing about this project is that its pretty forgiving. As the solution cools,

crystals are going to form on the bottom of the bowl. As long as your egg is in the

bottom of the bowl, its going to collect some crystals, even if youve messed uppractically everything.

When youre satisfied that the mixture is sufficiently saturated, drop an eggshell or two

into the mixture. We did all of ours two at a time.

Now, you wait.

Leave it alone until tomorrow. Pick up the eggshells tomorrow, and see how you like

them. If you want the crystals to grow bigger, carefully (!!) put the eggshells back in the

solution, and wait until the next day. If youre happy with the size of the crystals, take

them out and start over with a couple of new eggshells.

The giant one in the bottom right, below, soaked for three or four days.


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You can keep reheating and re-saturating this alum solution until youre sick of it. When

that happens, pour it down the drain, wash your bowl, and be done. Alum is an edible

pickling spice, so its completely safe.

But dont go eating a bunch of it or anything. Safe and healthy are two different things.

The slideshow below has up-close pictures of most of our crystal geodes. Allie attacked

them before Id gotten to take pictures of all of them, and I forgot to go back and finish.

On that note, they all survived Allies attack, so the crystals are fairly durable once

theyve dried.


14/18

The Transparent and Bouncy Egg Experiment

.

The Transparent Egg Experiment

For this experiment you'll need:

a raw egg (you may want to do a few in case your egg breaks)vinegar

glass jar or plastic container with lid

Place your raw egg in a jar and cover it with vinegar. You will notice the reaction of theegg shell with calcium carbonate and vinegar. It will bubble for the first day (as above)The second day you need to change the vinegar. After 48 hours we carefully rinsed theraw egg and noticed it was transparent! Cool! Isn't it amazing? Basically it is an eggwithout a shell!
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0J3EG7E4zuo/T2QMo5kH0NI/AAAAAAAADP0/CLzHTBeEkhA/s1600/Bouncy+Egg.jpg


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Here you can see that it is flexible because of the membrane. The membrane thickenswith the vinegar and holds the raw egg together.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AwwNqAP9AHA/T2N0aTq_qEI/AAAAAAAADOs/Sp_GYLE6FKE/s1600/IMG_9790.JPG


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The Naked raw egg bounces, but don't bounce too high or too hard or you'll have an eggsplatted on the counter top.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NRXh9oXoS_0/T2N03dnx35I/AAAAAAAADPA/c5WVguKu2YE/s1600/IMG_9807.JPG


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Here is the naked raw egg and a hard boiled bouncy egg. We added blue to the vinegarfor the second time we did the bouncy egg. Both eggs did bounce because of themembrane around the egg. We noticed the raw naked egg was much larger than the hardboiled bouncy egg. The reason the raw egg is larger is because the egg absorbed some ofthe vinegar.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s-MtfIYhXqA/T2QMQOQOATI/AAAAAAAADPs/ksIqD01hOSo/s1600/TheTransparentEgg.jpg


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This was quite an experiment and we learned a lot. I hope I have given you some tips sothat your experiment is successful.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5eI8ncoAxWg/T2N0_4qOiMI/AAAAAAAADPI/E0WTFDzCxVE/s1600/IMG_9817.JPG

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