We are all stuck at home so why not put my science background to use and the best thing to do to help everyone is to put together a list of science experiments that you can do at home with and without kids!! I’m putting together the realistic ones that most people have the materials for already! This is all thanks to my friend Caitlin!!! She is a teacher needing activities for her students!
Experiment 1 – The Bottled Tornado!!!
Materials: two bottles, a short tube to connect them, tape, water and anything you’d like to add to the water like glitter or food dye!
- Step 1: Add water to one of the bottles
- Step 2: Connect the bottles with the short tube and tape them together
- Step 3: Flip the bottle with the water upside down and spin in a circle and you’ll see a tornado happen!
What’s going on?! When you spin the bottle you are creating a vortex because as water goes down, the air in the empty bottle goes up! The more complex way of explaining this is displacement; as the water is being pulled by gravity, it takes the place of the air.
Experiment 2 – Create The Rainbow
Materials: water, sugar, jar, and food coloring
- Step 1: Take 3 tablespoons of water and put into 6 different bowls
- Step 2: Add sugar to each bowl starting with a little and ending with a lot and mix to dissolve
- Step 3: Add food coloring (preferably red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple)
- Step 4: Take a small glass and put the solution with the most sugar at the bottom and layer on top each lesser amount of sugar and you will see a rainbow effect
What’s going on?! When you add sugar to water, you are making a more dense solution so anything lighter will sit on top of it!
Experiment 3 – Lava Lamp
Materials: Alka Seltzer tablet, water, oil, glass, food coloring
- Step 1: Add equal parts water and oil to glass and add food coloring
- Step 2: Crush Alka Seltzer tablet and drop into glass
What’s going on?! The Alka Seltzer reacts with the water in the glass forming gas bubbles that get pushed to the top of the glass where they release the gas and then sink back down. The lava lamp effect comes from the different densities between water and oil. Water sinks down immediately and oil sits on top.
Experiment 4 – Homemade Sundial
Materials: stick, watch, playdough, and rocks
- Step 1: Find a sunny spot in the lawn or on the sidewalk
- Step 2: Place the stick into the ground if in the lawn or put it into some playdough then onto the sidewalk
- Step 3: Every hour place a rock where the shadow falls, by the end of the day you should have all the hours covered! Now you can tell time with the sun
What’s going on?! The sun beams down on the stick and the shadow that is formed will (throughout the day) make a full circle. This is because we are moving around the sun.
Experiment 5 – Elephant toothpaste
Materials: soda bottle, ½ cup hydrogen peroxide, 1 tablespoon yeast, 3 tablespoons warm water, dish soap, small cup, towel, food coloring
- Step 1: Lay down the towel to make clean up easy
- Step 2: Pour all the hydrogen peroxide into the soda bottle
- Step 3: Add your favorite food coloring to the hydrogen peroxide
- Step 4: Add about 1 tablespoon of the dish soap and mix carefully
- Step 5: In the small cup put combine the warm water and yeast and mix for 1 minute
- Step 6: Magic step!! Pour the water/yeast mixture into the soda bottle and watch the foam form!
What’s going on?! Each of the bubbles in the foam is filled with oxygen. The yeast removed the oxygen from the hydrogen peroxide. This happens super fast! The soda bottle most likely will get a little warm due to this being an energy releasing reaction.
If you end up doing any of these send me pictures!! I would love to add them to this post!! I have so many teacher friends so I’m hoping this can be super helpful for them!
Xox, Z
