Energy Transfer through Balls

Energy is constantly changing forms and transferring between objects, try seeing for yourself how this works. Use two balls to transfer kinetic energy from the the big ball to the smaller one and see what happens.

What you'll need:

• A large, heavy ball such as a basketball or soccer ball
• A smaller, light ball such as a tennis ball or inflatable rubber ball

Instructions:

1. Make sure you're outside with plenty of room.
2. Carefully put the tennis ball on top of the basketball, holding one hand under the basketball and the other on top of the tennis ball.
3. Let go of both the balls at exactly the same time and observe what happens.

What's happening?

If you dropped the balls at the same time, the tennis ball should bounce off the basketball and fly high into the air. The two balls hit each other just after they hit the ground, a lot of the kinetic energy in the larger basketball is transferred through to the smaller tennis ball, sending it high into the air.

While you held the balls in the air before dropping them they had another type of energy called 'potential energy', the balls gained this through the effort it took you to lift the balls up, it is interesting to note that energy is never lost, only transferred into other kinds of energy.

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?

Steel Wool & Vinegar Reaction

Soak steel wool in vinegar and watch what happens as the iron in the steel begins to react with the oxygen around it. This fun science experiment for kids is great for learning about chemical reactions. What you'll need: Steel Wool Vinegar Two beakers Paper or a lid (something to cover the beaker to keep the heat in) Thermometer Instructions: Place the steel wool in a beaker. Pour vinegar on to the steel wool and allow it to soak in the vinegar for around one minute. Remove the steel wool and drain any excess vinegar. Wrap the steel wool around the base of the thermometer and place them both in the second beaker. Cover the beaker with paper or a lid to keep the heat in (make sure you can still read the temperature on the thermometer, having a small hole in the paper or lid for the thermometer to go through is a good idea). Check the initial temperature and then monitor it for around five minutes. What's happening? The temperature inside the beaker should gradually rise, you might even notice the beaker getting foggy. When you soak the steel wool in vinegar it removes the protective coating of the steel wool and allows the iron in the steel to rust. Rusting (or oxidation) is a chemical reaction between iron and oxygen, this chemical reaction creates heat energy which increases the temperature inside the beaker. This experiment is an example of an exothermic reaction, a chemical reaction that releases energy in the form of heat.

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:

1. Fill the glass to the top with warm water.
2. Gently lower in the ice cube, making sure you don’t bump the table or spill any water over the edge of the glass.
3. 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.

Bending Water with Static

Here’s an easy and fun science experiment that’s great for helping kids learn about static electricity. Try bending water with static electricity produced by combing your hair or rubbing it with an inflated balloon, can it really be done? Give it a try and find out!

What you'll need:

• A plastic comb (or an inflated balloon)
• A narrow stream of water from a tap
• Dry hair

Instructions:

1. Turn on the water so it is falling from the tap in a narrow stream (just a few millimetres across but not droplets).
2. Run the comb through your hair just as you normally would when brushing it (do this around 10 times). If you are using a balloon then rub it back and forth against your hair for a few seconds.
3. Slowly move the comb or balloon towards the stream of water (without touching it) while watching closely to see what happens.

What's happening?

The static electricity you built up by combing your hair or rubbing it against the balloon attracts the stream of water, bending it towards the comb or balloon like magic!

Negatively charged particles called electrons jump from your hair to the comb as they rub together, the comb now has extra electrons and is negatively charged. The water features both positive and negatively charged particles and is neutral. Positive and negative charges are attracted to each other so when you move the negatively charged comb (or balloon) towards the stream, it attracts the water's positively charged particles and the stream bends!

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?

Warm Air Needs More Room

As its temperature rises, air starts to act a little differently. Find out what happens to a balloon when the air inside it heats up with this fun science experiment for kids. What you'll need: Empty bottle Balloon Pot of hot water (not boiling) Instructions: Stretch the balloon over the mouth of the empty bottle. Put the bottle in the pot of hot water, let it stand for a few minutes and watch what happens. What's happening? As the air inside the balloon heats up it starts to expand. The molecules begin to move faster and further apart from each other. This is what makes the balloon stretch. There is still the same amount of air inside the balloon and bottle, it has just expanded as it heats up. Warm air therefore takes up more space than the same amount of cold air, it also weighs less than cold air occupying the same space. You might have seen this principle in action if you've flown in or watched a hot air balloon.

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:

1. Squeeze some lemon juice into the bowl and add a few drops of water.
2. Mix the water and lemon juice with the spoon.
3. Dip the cotton bud into the mixture and write a message onto the white paper.
4. Wait for the juice to dry so it becomes completely invisible.
5. 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.

Make Your Own Rainbow

Learn how to make a rainbow with this fun science experiment for kids. Using just a few simple everyday items you can find out how rainbows work while enjoying an interactive, hands on activity that’s perfect for kids. What you'll need: A glass of water (about three quarters full) White paper A sunny day Instructions: Take the glass of water and paper to a part of the room with sunlight (near a window is good). Hold the glass of water (being careful not to spill it) above the paper and watch as sunlight passes through the glass of water, refracts (bends) and forms a rainbow of colors on your sheet of paper. Try holding the glass of water at different heights and angles to see if it has a different effect. What's happening? While you normally see a rainbow as an arc of color in the sky, they can also form in other situations. You may have seen a rainbow in a water fountain or in the mist of a waterfall and you can even make your own such as you did in this experiment. Rainbows form in the sky when sunlight refracts (bends) as it passes through raindrops, it acts in the same way when it passes through your glass of water. The sunlight refracts, separating it into the colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Carefully fill the jar with boiling water (you might want to get an adult to help with this part).
4. 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.
5. Add some of the optional blue food coloring if you'd like to give your snowflake a nice bluish tinge.
6. 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.
7. 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!

Egg Bubbles

This fun science experiment for kids focuses on some of the interesting characteristics of eggs. Prove the existence of a small air pocket inside an egg as well as thousands of small holes in the shell called pores, while learning what air does as it is heated.

What you'll need:

• A clear glass or jar
• Hot water (adult supervision is a good idea when using hot water)
• An egg
• A magnifying glass

Instructions:

1. Place the egg carefully into the glass or jar.
2. Carefully pour hot water into the glass or jar until it is nearly full.
3. Leave the glass or jar on a table or flat surface and watch the egg closely for a few minutes (the glass may become hot so be careful).
4. Use your magnifying glass to closely examine what is happening.

What's happening?

After surrounding the egg with hot water you will notice tiny bubbles forming on the egg shell which eventually bubble their way to the surface.

An egg contains a small air pocket at its larger end between the shell and egg white. When the air trapped inside this small pocket begins to heat up it expands and tries to find a way out of the shell, but how does it escape?

They're too small to see under normal conditions but with the help of a magnifying glass you can see that egg shells contain thousands of small holes called pores (human skin has pores too).

The pores allow air to pass through the shell, making it look like the egg is breathing as the air expands and is forced through the shell.

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:

1. Fill the bucket until it is around half full with water.
2. Stand well clear of other people or anything else that could get in the way.
3. 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.
4. 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.

Bend a Straw with Your Eyes

Using the power of your eyes, bend a straw sitting in half a glass of water without even touching it! It sounds like magic but it's really another amazing scientific principle at work. What you'll need: A glass half filled with water A straw 2 eyes (preferably yours) Instructions: Look at the straw from the top and bottom of the glass. Look at the straw from the side of the glass, focus on the point where the straw enters the water, what is strange about what you see? What's happening? Our eyes are using light to see various objects all the time, but when this light travels through different mediums (such as water & air) it changes direction slightly. Light refracts (or bends) when it passes from water to air. The straw looks bent because you are seeing the bottom part through the water and air but the top part through the air only. Air has a refractive index of around 1.0003 while water has a refractive index of about 1.33.

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.

Microscopic Creatures in Water

Water can be home to a lot of interesting creatures and microorganisms, especially if it's dirty water found in ponds or near plants. Take some samples, view them under a microscope and see what you can find. How clean is the water from your tap compared to the water found in a pond? Experiment and see what kind of microscopic creatures you can find! What you'll need: A concave slide A dropper A microscope Different samples of water (tap water, pond water, muddy water etc). Near plants or in the mud are good places to take samples as they usually contain more microorganisms. Instructions: Set up you microscope, preferably using its highest setting. Use the dropper to take some water from one of your samples and put it on the concave slide. Focus the microscope, what can you see? Be patient if you can't see anything. If you still can't see anything and have checked that you are in focus, try a different water sample. Look at how the creatures move. After observing their movements you might like to record their behaviors and draw them. What are you looking at? Some of the creatures and microorganisms you might be able to see include: Euglenas - These are between a plant and an animal, they have a long tail called a flagellum which allows them to move. Protozoa - They have a flagella (tail) which can be hard to see, the difference between protozoa and algae is often hard to define. Amoebas - These microorganisms swim by wobbling. They also surround their food like a blob in order to eat it. Algae - Not considered to be plants by most scientists, these organisms might be colored yellowish, greenish or reddish. They may also be found by themselves or in chains. There might even my larger creatures such as worms or brine shrimp in your water samples, depending on where you took them from.

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.

Escaping Water

Water can certainly move in mysterious ways, get the water from one cup to make its way up hill and back down into a second empty cup with the help of paper towels and an interesting scientific process. What you'll need: A glass of water An empty glass Some paper towels Instructions: Twist a couple of pieces of paper towel together until it forms something that looks a little like a piece of rope, this will be the 'wick' that will absorb and transfer the water (a bit like the wick on a candle transferring the wax to the flame). Place one end of the paper towels into the glass filled with water and the other into the empty glass. Watch what happens (this experiment takes a little bit of patience). What's happening? Your paper towel rope (or wick) starts getting wet, after a few minutes you will notice that the empty glass is starting to fill with water, it keeps filling until there is an even amount of water in each glass, how does this happen? This process is called 'capillary action', the water uses this process to move along the tiny gaps in the fibre of the paper towels. It occurs due to the adhesive force between the water and the paper towel being stronger than the cohesive forces inside the water itself. This process can also be seen in plants where moisture travels from the roots to the rest of the plant.

Crazy Putty

Using some everyday household items such as borax, water, PVA glue and food coloring, make some crazy putty that you can squish in your hands, mould into shapes or even bounce on the ground.

What you'll need:

• 2 containers (1 smaller than the other, preferably a film canister)
• Water
• Food colouring
• PVA glue (a type of white glue also known as Elmer's glue)
• Borax solution (ratio of about 1 Tbsp of borax to a cup of water)

Instructions:

1. Fill the bottom of the larger container with PVA glue.
2. Add a few squirts of water and stir.
3. Add 2 or 3 drops of food colouring and stir.
4. Add a squirt of borax (possibly a bit more depending on how much PVA glue you used).
5. Stir the mixture up and put it into the smaller container. By now the mixture should be joining together, acting like putty, crazy putty!

What's happening?

The PVA glue you use is a type of polymer called polyvinyl acetate (PVA for short), while the borax is made of a chemical called sodium borate. When you combine the two in a water solution, the borax reacts with the glue molecules, joining them together into one giant molecule. This new compound is able to absorb large amounts of water, producing a putty like substance which you can squish in your hands or even bounce.

Taste Testing Without Smell

We all know that some foods taste better than others but what gives us the ability to experience all these unique flavours? This simple experiment shows that there's a lot more to taste than you might have first thought. What you'll need: A small piece of peeled potato A small piece of peeled apple (same shape as the potato so you can't tell the difference) Instructions: Close your eyes and mix up the piece of potato and the piece of apple so you don't know which is which. Hold your nose and eat each piece, can you tell the difference? What's happening? Holding your nose while tasting the potato and apple makes it hard to tell the difference between the two. Your nose and mouth are connected through the same airway which means that you taste and smell foods at the same time. Your sense of taste can recognize salty, sweet, bitter and sour but when you combine this with your sense of smell you can recognize many other individual 'tastes'. Take away your smell (and sight) and you limit your brains ability to tell the difference between certain foods.

Make a Ping Pong Ball Float

Can you control a ping pong ball as it floats above a hair dryer? Put your hand-eye coordination skills to the test while learning the important role that forces such as gravity and air pressure play in this simple experiment for kids. What you'll need: At least 1 ping pong ball (2 or 3 would be great) A hair dryer Instructions: Plug in the hair dryer and turn it on. Put it on the highest setting and point it straight up. Place your ping pong ball above the hair dryer and watch what happens. What's happening? Your ping pong ball floats gently above the hair dryer without shifting sideways or flying across the other side of the room. The airflow from the hair dryer pushes the ping pong ball upwards until its upward force equals the force of gravity pushing down on it. When it reaches this point it gently bounces around, floating where the upward and downward forces are equal. The reason the ping pong ball stays nicely inside the column of air produced by the hair dryer without shifting sideways is due to air pressure. The fast moving air from the hair dryer creates a column of lower air pressure, the surrounding higher air pressure forces the ping pong ball to stay inside this column, making it easy to move the hair dryer around without losing control of the ping pong ball. See if you can float 2 or even 3 ping pong balls as an extra challenge.