Tag Archives: observing

Christmas Science

January 30, 2016 Ailie Rankin Leave a comment

At christmas time the learning continued (you may have noticed the onset of the season in some of the previous posts’ pictures).

It was only right that the science that we explored be linked to not only the previous sessions but also the festivities – helping us all to apply the learning in a meaningful context.

Building on our observations of the changing state of the foam from the Elephant’s toothpaste, we looked at changing states again but of sugar, in the form of candy canes.

We considered what happens to candy when you leave it in your mouth for a wee while. Then considered the results of different solutions – hot water, cold water, carbonated water, vinegar or oil.

The previous experiences influenced our predictions.

Put it in vinegar - it'll make bubbles. — Put it in vinegar – it’ll make bubbles.

"I think it's going to make rain!" — “I think it’s going to make rain!”

"It's going to be bright like a sun!" — “It’s going to be bright like a sun!”

"They will go red"[the liquids] "Carbonated water first, vinegar last" — “They will go red”[the liquids] “Carbonated water first, vinegar last”

So Matthew guessed the differences in the liquids would affect the candy canes the same way but over different times, most children predicted the candy canes would react the same way in all the solutions. But Mathew was closest.

We think and talk about our predictions.

We popped one candy cane each into testubes of different solutions.

We ran out of candy canes for the afternoon so had to check the pieces we used were about the same size.

We wanted to have ownership of the different test tubes in the afternoon so we could almost make it a competition!

We took notes and recorded our findings.

The solutions in some of the test tubes began to change

We lifted the canes up and out every now and again to check on them.

We agitated the mixture by shaking it to see if it changed the process.

Some of the candy canes had gotten a lot thinner! They had disolved!

“It’s snapped! The hot water one broke!”

We laid the left over canes out side by side so that we could compare them more easily.

The canes had changed a lot, they were quite different.

We talked about what we thought had happened.

The hot water seemed to have had the most effect.

The candy cane that had been in the hot water had almost disolved completely. The oil one hadn’t changed at all.

“The oil one will never change” Ramsay

We were quite intrigued about the differences and the disolving and so we came up with ideas of other things we could try the candy canes in.

Emily chose milk and predicted. “It’ll turn the milk pink”

It did but the cane hardly disolved in the time it took hot water to work.

Eilidh chose bubble bath and predicted a pink cloud.

We used lots of descriptive and comparative language when we looked at more than one test tube.

Erin tried orange juice and predicted a change in colour.

“A cloud! A cloud! It’s making a wee pink cloud!”

Only Emily’s disolved in any noticable way, although they were all very very sticky which suggest the process started with them all in some way.

So now we know: sugar disolves in water but not oil, and the temperature of the water can speed up or slow down the process.

We also know science doesn’t need to stop at Christmas! You can always investigate H2Ho Ho Ho!

(Too far?)

For more easy science why not check out Pinterest.

Or Happy Hooligans has some fun ideas also.

Don’t forget to leave a comment or share your experiment and learning with us!

Happy experimenting

Campus, chemistry

Elephant’s Toothpaste

January 29, 2016 Ailie Rankin Leave a comment

While working on the potions it became clear that erupting and exploding reactions were the ones that the children sought the most. After a quick browse on Pinterest we came across Elephant’s Toothpaste. How could we resist?

We used hydrogen peroxide as part of this experiment which is obviously nasty on the skin so some time was spent discussing ways of ensuring we were safe. This is always part of our process but was especially focussed on for this experiment.

We were careful to keep our hands away from the bottles –

“It’s dangerous! Don’t touch! But we can watch.”

The hydrogen peroxide was mixed with a little washing up liquid and food colouring, grown ups needed to do that bit. The experiment used yeast as well which we could touch and so help with that.

We watched closely as Ailie carefully poured the chemicals together.

Then we poured the mixtures together….

We had a range of different predictions. Alfie thought the yeast would turn green. Millie predicted it would go bubbly. Jack thought it would turn into water. Everyone else just thought the colour would change. However no-one predicted quite what happened.

“It Exploded!!” – Alfie

It foamed up and over the top and kept growing.

The peroxide and yeast have an exothermic reaction (it releases heat) which burns all the peroxide away leaving hydrogen and oxygen which with the washing up liquid means it turns into harmless foam. The reaction continues until all the yeast or the peroxide is gone so the foam keeps growing.

Or as Ramsay put it…

There was a bottle and it went over the bottle and made a volcano!

Here are our volcanic eruptions:

Some seemed to go on for longer and make more foam.

We carefully touched the foam – it was warm!

When they slowed right down the, Ailie took the dangerous bottles away.

So then we were left with coloured foam. Hmmmm what could we do with that? Well we had to play and explore the texture and colours of course!

We were fascinated with the mixing colours.

The afternoon children were more tentative.

After a while it all turned pink and slimy.

We found we could draw patterns and marks in it.

It was great for early writing patterns.

Eventually the mixture got a little too runny. But it was fun to make a huge circle pattern by running around and around the tough spot. There was only one way to make it better….

The instructions for elephants toothpaste can be found on Pinterest. The hydrogen peroxide can be bought at Sally’s and the yeast can be bought at any supermarket in the baking section.

Please remember that anti bacterial washing up liquid is NOT to be used in the experiment. Cheap bubble bath can be substituted instead.

Why not have a go yourself? Don’t forget to share how you get on in our comments.

Happy experimenting!

Campus, chemistry

Mad Mixing!

January 29, 2016 Ailie Rankin Leave a comment

Inspired by Isla and Amelia’s interest we looked at potion making, chemistry and solutions.

We started of by thinking about what happens when things mix. Most children predicted it would just change colour.

The bottle holds vinegar, the balloon hold bicarbonate of soda.

The chemicals reacted and released a gas! It expanded and made the balloon inflate!

It didn’t just change colour! It created a gas that inflated the balloon. And boy did the balloons inflate!

Millie predicted the balloon would grow to touch the ceiling!

Mason thought the inflating would be multiplied by tipping the vinegar into the balloon. (It didn’t.)

Noemi checked the tension of the balloon by tapping gently with the magnifying glass.

The balloons made different shapes depending on the amounts of soda and vinegar that was mixed.

Some of the mixtures spilled out of the balloons due to the pressure.

The solution that had spilled out felt fizzy on our fingers.

We decided to investigate what made the fizz and the gas. Could we recreate the reaction with other materials?

The mad mixing potions began!

We used a range of household chemicals and substances : conditioner, bubble bath, baby oil, vinegar, bicarbonate of soda, effervescent vitamin tablets, warm water, cold water, carbonated water. And we got a range of results!

The effervescent tablets made our potions expand and overflow.

We used beakers and test tubes and droppers and pipettes.

Some potions fizzed up and over quickly.

Some potions were foamy and smelled nice.

Isaac was really curious about the mixtures and spent all session exploring different reactions.

The tablets fizzed in our wet hands – they tickled!

Alfie was the first to realise exactly what caused the fizzing over – the bubble bath, carbonated water and tablet.

Olivia’s potion made lovely big bubbles that would pop.

Eilidh used pipettes to measure out ingredients and also to mix them.

Why not have a look at our log books to see what we said about our potions.

It was so interesting we decided to try it again another day!

Again some potions didn’t mix – this time we noted it was the ones with oil in.

Our potions came out more bubbly this time.

We helped each other pour out our ingredients. We had to use strong finger muscles and coordination to do this. (This will help us get ready to write!)

We remembered the things we learned about the mixtures from the last time and we used that to make things happen as we wanted.

We were able to apply our learning from the previous time to this new experiment and were able to predict the results much more successfully.

Why not try some mad mixing at home? Any kitchen ingredients can make some crazy potions (and smells)!

If you want to find out more about home science why not have a wee look at Nina and the Neurons or The Royal Institution’s website for some ideas.

Don’t forget we have a Pinterest board with science ideas too!

Let us know how you got on – you could even send us photos of the mad mixtures through our comments.

Happy mixing!

Campus, weather

How does it rain?

January 27, 2016 Ailie Rankin Leave a comment

Well after our success with making a cloud we just had to think about why some clouds rained and why others didn’t?

So we conducted an experiment to investigate this.

We hypothesised it was about the quantity of water the cloud had soaked up, and recorded these in our science logbook.

Daniel recorded that he predicted clouds needed more water to make rain.

Alex predicted that the cloud with less water would make rain.

So we set up our experiment….

We started with a tub of plain water to represent the air.

We squirted shaving foam on top to be the cloud.

The foam floated on top of the water, like a cloud hanging in the sky.

We used dropper s to pick up and drop blue food colouring onto the foam.

We used blue colouring to pretend it was water in the clouds. The dye meant we could see what happened to it. We added a tiny bit to one and a lot more to another.

We looked closely through the magnifying glasses.

We talked about what we thought was happening. One cloud had made rain!

We looked again. Daniel and Alex added more dye to see what would happen.

The clouds with lots of dye ‘water’ rained for a while.

We recorded our findings in our logbook.

Natalie recorded that the large cloud stayed the same when the little cloud let rain through

Rebekah recorded the rain falling from the cloud.

So clouds with lots of water are the ones that make rain. If a cloud only has a little water, it doesn’t. Lots of water is heavier than a little water so the water falls down when there is enough in the cloud to be heavy, but big clouds need more water to become too heavy and rain.

But we didn’t stop there. Chloe and Amelia wanted to see if they could speed things up by mixing the cloud (foam) and (water) air.