Tag Archives: pressure

balloons and gas

February 17, 2016 Ailie Rankin 4 Comments

Today we looked and at and thought about balloons and gas. This was a follow up to Isla’s fab question last time:

“What is gas?”

So we started with our balloon holding bicarbonate of soda on a bottle containing vinegar. We discussed what happened when we mixed these ingredients on Monday.

“The bottle fell over and it just fizzed a bit” – Alf

So the consensus of prediction was that the bottle would fall over.

The balloon inflated however, much to the children’s delight!

“Arrgh! It’s getting bigger! It’s going to explode!!” – Patrick

We squeezed and shook the balloon and bottle and thought about the bubbles (which were made by the gas) and we decided to investigate – could we make a gas?

“Yes!” – Daniel “It’ll be like a bomb and explode!” – Patrick

We had bicarbonate of soda, vinegar, effervescent tablets, carbonated water, bubble bath, conditioners, shaving foam, caster and icing sugars.

We discussed safety as usual:

“Wash hands after.” – Innes “Don’t pop the balloons!” – Alex

“Move if you think it’ll explode!” – Daniel

Again there was disagreement about how long it would take….

“25 hundred” – Daniel “Just a minute or 2” – Patrick

"It'll take THIS long" — “It’ll take THIS long”

We mixed various ingredients and had a variety of results:

“It grew bigger and bigger and exploded like a bomb! It was going EVERYWHERE!” “It was because of the gas” – Patrick

“Look at mine! It’s like lava but it’s not hot!”

In the afternoon I structured it so that we were much more scientifically looking at the gas first. The children could choose what to mix and predict if it would make a gas to inflate the balloon or not.

"It might melt our eyes!" — “It might melt our eyes!”

It fizzed and bubbled out from under the lid.

It was not good, not enough gas” – Finn

"I'm scared it'll blow up" — “I’m scared it’ll blow up”

“It was small”- Belle

“It looks like a rocket” – Isla C.

"It just made a little gas." — “It just made a little gas.”

Sophia gave us the quote of the day………

“I am OBSESSED with all this gas! It’s like a hundred billion! It’s amazing!” “How much gas are you making????”

Our star scientist award has to go to Fraser though. He was one of the first to join the experiment and nearly the last to leave at the end of the morning. He quickly realised which ingredients gave the best fizzy results and experimented with differing amounts in various containers. He really focused on developing his learning about chemical reaction and gas! Well done Fraser!

Why not have a go at some mad mixing at home to create gases and explosions? Any household and kitchen ingredients could combine to make an interesting and possibly smelly concoction! Our fizzy favourites have to be the vinegar+ bicarbonate of soda or the carbonated water + effervescent tablets + bubble bath. Let us know how you get on, share any cool pictures or results.

And remember you can find lots of science ideas on our pinterest page.

Happy experimenting!

chemistry, physics

Rocket fuel and gas

February 15, 2016 Ailie Rankin Leave a comment

Following our success with our air pressure rocket, and Gracie’s suggestion, we decided to make an attempt to create our own rocket fuel to blast a bottle rocket into the air.

The ingredients for the explosion were the usual bicarbonate of soda and vinegar.

There were a range of predictions as to what would happen when we mixed the two (The main building children have not yet explored this mixture and so had no prior nursery experience to base these predictions on).

“Yass”[mimes blasting off into the air] “Blast Off!” – Iona

“It might come down,” -Eilidh

“Blast up” – Natalie

“It’s going to blast into space!” – Lauren

The air's going to make it go up! — The air’s going to make it go up!

It's going to fly in the air! — It’s going to fly in the air!

Brandon even wrote his prediction clearly that it would go..

However some of the children showed a great level of awareness and applied it to their prediction (or maybe they could just smell the vinegar soaked into my clothes!

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

“It’ll mess everywhere” -Amy M.

We discussed ways of staying safe (staying well back, only Ailie was to touch the rocket when the bicarbonate of soda was added).

There was a debate about how long it would take to blast off.

“Fast” – Urban “3 minutes”- Lauren

“50 minutes” – James S. “4 minutes”- Amy M.

Well there were a range of results. Most of the attempts in the morning resulted in gentle fizzing and the plug gently popping out. Not exactly the blast we had hoped for.

WE carefully squeezed the vinegar into the rocket bottle.

This one fizzed a lot but still didn’t blast off.

It just fizzed and slowly pushed the plug out.

“When we put the first one down it didn’t blast off, it just went EVERYWHERE!” – Gabi

“It fell over and poured out.” – Urban

However we had a couple of explosions!

“It exploded!” – Eilidh

It went all up Ailie's sleeve, and her hair and her glasses!" — It went all up Ailie’s sleeve, and her hair and her glasses!”

“It exploded like a bomb!” – James

Unfortunately the successful rockets were so fast that we couldn’t get a photograph!

So we reviewed the experiment and came up with some ideas on how to improve….

“We need to fix it!” – Urban

“Make some things that would keep it on.” – Alf

In the end the most successful attempts were made using the plug that the vinegar bottle came with.

So why did it blast off (eventually)?

Well the vinegar and bicarbonate of soda reacted and created a gas. The pressure of the gas expanding in the bottle pushed the plug and gas out of the bottle with great force, pushing the bottle into the air!

Isla – “What is a gas?”

Hmmmmmm

Now there’s a question!

Well we could capture gas in a balloon to let us think about it.

We had to have a wee look at the static electricity generated by the balloon and the effect it has on our hair.

I think we need to have a wee look at balloons and gas next!

Please remember to leave a wee to comment share the learning!

And why not see if you have better luck than I with the rocket? There are various youtube video tutorials telling you how. Let us know how you get on!

physics

Fighting gravity

February 3, 2016 Ailie Rankin 3 Comments

Since we have explored gravity and how it effects dropped objects (the same regardless of mass) perhaps we should think about what is needed to escape gravity.

In order to do this we need to consider forces.

So we exerted forces on one another with the hula hoops, staying safe of course!

The biggest force was the one that determined the direction.

We really put our backs into exerting our forces!

Lara even used the radiator guard to help her exert more force!

But Gracie gave as good as she got and used a big force too!

But something unexpected happened! As Lara recorded on the logbook.

Lara recorded that the large force placed on the hula hoop broke it!

“We were learning about force and I had quite a lot of force (it was about 20 million) and the hula hoop burst right open!

Lara told her friends about what happened using the word "force"! — Lara told her friends about what happened using the word “force”!

Isla applied most force so she pulled Ryan toward her.

Then we thought about what kind of forces could be made to oppose gravity. Would it need to be a little force or a big force? What difference would the size of the force make? We explored this with our very own rockets!

We were in agreement with our predictions:

Elise: “We’ll need a big force”

Of course we needed to stay safe as always!

“We have to watch – it will fall!”: Caoimhe

“We need to stay on gravity.” Ross M.

“We could go somewhere else.”: Harmony

“We could wear an umbrella on our head”: Isla M.

We went with Ryan D and Gracie’s ideas though.

There was a conversation about the best way to exert the force to make the stomper rocket blast off:

Lara: “You push it like this.”[ Demonstrating with her hands].

Ross M: “No you do it with a foot.”

Caoimhe: “You need to put 2 feet on it – look” [shows the others the picture on the box].

There was some debate over the length of time the rocket would take to fly…

Harmony: “Oh ages – 100 days”

Ryan D.: “25 years”

Elyse: “22”

Ross M.: “100 minutes”

Isla M.: 1 minute

Caoimhe: “50 minutes”

It was a little faster. (In fact it was so fast that the camera couldn’t catch more than a blur!)

We used some of our numeracy skills to help us prepare for blast off. (Counting down helps children understand the sequence of numbers and is the first steps towards subtraction!)

Charlie realised that if you jumped on to the pump you could apply more force. Natalie took a run and jump to get even greater force. Then Euan worked out that he could jump from the step to use gravity to add force!