Summer Science -- Elephant Toothpaste!

It's our almost-weekly summer science day! Today we talked chemistry and reactions. What happens when you mix things together? We did some basic balancing of our chemical reaction (lots of sketching of what atoms go where) and figured out we'd end up with some water and some O2 gas at the end. The water got foamy with the help of some added dish soap and the released O2. We had enough supplies to run the experiment several times and both kiddos had a blast dumping in the catalyst and playing with the foam. The kids thought the name "Elephant Toothpaste" wasn't the best fit, it's not minty or pasty, but if you're looking for this experiment that's how to find it online.

After their ceramics class at the local rec center the kids were on a crafty kick so we FINALLY got around to making the jet packs they've been wishing for all summer. Jet packs have been a crucial part of outdoor play ever since Emma showed up years ago with a jet pack made of a pizza box with duct tape straps. The official jetpacks are much, much cooler! There were a fair number of steps I had to do for them, like the spray painting and measuring the straps, but they worked hard on the flames and helping to put it all together.

2L pop bottles, silver spray paint, felt, cardboard, and straps. 

 They are already negotiating on whether they are space cadets or space explorers. The space explorer is going to teach the space cadet at space school until they are ready to become a full fledged explorer.

Putting Off the Birds and the Bees

FFM is in camp this week at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. It's his favorite camp over the years and this year he selected Museum Investigators. Each day of the camp they learn about a different part of the museum. Today was Expedition Health Day and they learned all about DNA and how their DNA is a map of themselves. On the way home FFM was explaining all this to me and asked where his DNA came from (for rolling tongue and bendy hitchhiker thumb). I told him some from Dad, some from me. There was a pause in the backseat while the brain cogs turned and he asked "If I grew inside of you that's how I got your DNA in me. How did I get Daddy's DNA?" Scrambling rapidly and wholly unprepared to discuss exactly where babies come from ( all while navigating early downtown rush hour), I told him that DNA can move in all kids of ways. Like the DNA in your hair, your skin, and your spit. He chewed on that for a minute and remarked that spit stays in your mouth. I blew him a big, juicy raspberry and now I'm pretty sure he thinks Travis and I spit on each other to make him. We'll sort him out in a couple years or so.

Summer "Science" #3

Last week's science day was interrupted by a dentist appointment so we kept it short and simple.

It all started when FFM got a new bike accessory...

and while it's heaps 'o fun it takes A LOT of chalk. And of course it takes it's own special size of chalk. We looked up some homemade chalk recipes online and started saving paper tubes for molds. On project day the weather was a bit blustery so we took our project to the laundry room in case it got messy.

 First we lined the tubes with squares of wax paper. This is supposed to make it easier to get the finished chalk sticks out.

 Then we mixed plaster of paris with tempera paints and some water until it was smooth and easy to pour.

 Finally, the only part that got a little tricky, we poured into our molds that we'd set up on a cookie sheet lined with foil for easy clean up. Since we mixed in an old bowl that didn't have a lip it was challenging pouring into the tops of the tubes.

We're still waiting for it to dry, the plaster/chalk set very quickly but we can tell that it isn't all the way cured because some of the paper tubes are damp at the bottom. I'd guess another day or two and they'll be all set to strap into the Chalktrail and color up the streets around our house.

Summer Science #2

At the end of last summer both F and I felt like we'd frittered our summer away. We did lots of fun camps, but somehow never got around to doing all the fun excursions, experiments, and exciting things we thought we'd get squeezed in to our short three month break. This year I MADE A PLAN (who's laughing at the freaky planner?). We've got a summer bucket list and F and pal Emma both asked if we could do some experiments. I browsed the web and some of my old camp/school planning workbooks. I knew I'd get hung up trying to get all over town for supplies, so I took my list of projects and spent half an hour on amazon gathering all the supplies we'd need.

Last week we did the mentos/diet coke experiment. Kiddos learned that the CO2 in the soda interacts with the "dimples, like on a golf ball" that are found on mentos, causing the "explosion." We compared A&W root beer and Diet Coke and determined they're both fun to blow up.

This week we're learning about fluorescence and the light spectrum. We talked about infrared light and ultraviolet light and the light we can see and the light we can't see. We didn't get much deeper than that, but we sure had a good time with glow water.

We grew some water beads, a control group in plain water and our test group in glow water.

For the glow water recipe, and a whole list of other fun recipes, click here

First we made a sign with a yellow highlighter and a yellow marker. We talked about how the highlighter glows or, fluoresces, in the black light but the marker just looks black because it's not reflecting the yellow we normally see in the visible spectrum. our beads, using regular water in the while bowls and glow water in the blue bowls. Then we made our glow beads using regular water and plain water. The kids wrote their hypothesis on which ones might glow under the glow light.

 It took a couple hours for our beads to soak up all the water, and then we headed to the basement!

 They had a great time trying to figure out what color the beads were in regular vs. black light. We turned on the lights to check it out. Same handful of beads, both times.

 I have a feeling there might be drips of glow water all over the basement now. The kids splashed around for a while, I'm thinking we should save the water and make some glowing Ooblek next.