Physics: Whatever floats your boat

This week the kids were given 6 items to analyze. First I asked them to order them by weight. The twist was they had to do it first by guessing, and then by measuring the weights with a scale. The kids were pretty surprised by how wrong their guesses were. We wondered why it was that some things, like say, a large piece of styrofoam "feel" lighter than others when they actually weigh more. We got some clues when we moved on to part two of the lab: testing each item to see if it floats or sinks in water. Wouldn't you know it, the things the kids thought were light, were floaters, and the things they thought were heavy, were sinkers. However, contrary to our expectations, whether something sinks is NOT simply about weight.

Then each kid was given a lump of clay. After observing that it too was a sinker, they were challenged to build a boat out of said sinking clay, and not just that, but a boat that could carry cargo (any number of marbles, also sinkers). After some trial and error, the kids figured out which shapes worked best.

Then, just for fun, the kids made bouncy balls out of water balloons.

General Science: What's a yeast's favorite food?

This week we learned a little bit about our tiny unicellular fungal friend, the yeast. After all, we have a lot in common: We eat, reproduce, respire...we're practically identical. So when it came to investigating which foods yeast like best, we decided to use something else we have in common: When we're done eating (and transforming the energy from food into energy our cells can use), we all release carbon dioxide. This comes in handy when we use yeast to help us make bread. It is the carbon dioxide gas that causes the bread to rise.

We compared carbon dioxide production in yeast when fed 5 different kinds of food: salt, flour, sugar, ground-up cookies, and ground up vaflim (wafers). To get an idea of which food was eaten most heartily by our yeast, we covered each bottle with a balloon. Then we sat back and watched the show. The samples of yeast fed sugar, cookies, and vaflim were the happiest, i.e. the balloons were the most inflated because of the greater production of carbon dioxide. The flour came in second place. We discussed how cookies contain sugar, and how flour, a complex sugar, can be broken down into simpler sugars. A little more work, but when you're hungry, you do what you have to. Yet one more thing we and yeast have in common...LAZINESS! Who here isn't counting down the days 'till summer vacation?!

Ice cream in a bag!

This week we did a pretty COOL trick....we made ice cream, without a freezer, without an ice cream machine. How did we do it and what does it have to do with science?

First we demonstrated that ice covered in salt will melt faster than ice alone, and most surprisingly that the liquid salt water is actually COLDER than the frozen ice. We then discussed how phase change, or matter moving back and forth between solid, liquid, and gas states, involves a transfer of energy or heat. In other words, when there is a phase change, heat is absorbed in one direction and released in the other. These ideas and observations formed the basis of our ice cream experiment.

The kids poured the ice cream ingredients (milk, vanilla, and sugar) into a small plastic bag. Then they placed this bag into a larger bag filled with a lot of ice and a lot of salt. The whole business was then wrapped in a towel and then shaken until the milk mixture solidified. The rock salt caused the ice to melt quickly and reach a sub-zero temperature, so that the resulting freezing salt water could quickly absorb heat from the milk mixture, giving you yummy, delicious ice cream or at the very least, a super-cool milk shake.



Here's the procedure in case anyone wants to try it at home.

1. Pour ¼ cup of milk into a sandwich-size zip lock bag.
2. Add 1 teaspoon of sugar and a couple drops of vanilla extract.
3. Close the bag carefully, while getting rid of the extra air.
4. Mush the bag around to mix the contents.
5. Place this bag in another sandwich zip lock bag, remove the extra air, and seal.
6. Fill a 1-gallon zip lock bag with ice and a half a cup of rock salt.
7. Place the double bagged milk mixture inside the larger bag, squeeze out the extra air, and seal.
8. Wrap each bag in a towel and mix, shake, and churn until the inner bag's contents freeze.

Tips:

* Make sure all bags are closed, especially before you start shaking up the bag of ice and salt.
* Double-bagging the milk mixture is important, to help reduce the odds of salt penetrating the bag and getting into the ice cream (yuck!).
* Err on the side of too much ice and too much salt.
* Try to keep the milk mixture bag in the middle of the ice, and especially in the middle of the melted salt water.
* See what happens if you add different flavors like chocolate syrup or lemon juice.

Chemistry in a bag

The kids started off with calcium chloride, sodium bicarbonate (see if your kids remember this compound's common name...it's baking soda), water, and phenol red, an indicator for acids. They put all of these materials in a plastic bag, the catch being that the liquids (water and phenol red) were first poured into plastic cups, which themselves were carefully placed in the bag. Why all the extra steps? This allowed us to measure the whole business BEFORE the chemical reactions began. After tying off the bag, the kids allowed the powders and liquids to mix, and that's when things got exciting! The kids observed many changes including: bubbles, the bag inflating, the red liquid turning yellow, and the contents both heating up and cooling down. The kids then measured the weight of the bag with its contents, and they were pretty surprised to find very little if any change. That's conservation of mass for ya! Step 2 of this experiment was breaking down the reaction into parts to see what happens when you combine different pairs of ingredients.



Chugim will run as usual next week for all groups, INCLUDING Tuesday's sessions, which will meet at their usual times.

General Science: Hunting for bacteria

Here are the results from last week's Bacteria Hunt:




Take-home message:

For the most part soap works, particularly with those bacteria samples taken from the trunk of my avocado tree.

Physics: The physics of swings

This week we continued our investigations into playground physics. The kids set out to understand what a swing is by building them out of Kinex. Once we had a few models to compare, we were able to consider what sorts of changes we could make to the design to affect the swing's period, the time it takes to swing back and forth. The kids came up with a few different variables: the mass of the swing, the length of the swing, and the height or angle at which you start the swing. Like our experiments with friction, we plan to test these variables in the field, on actual swings. Next week (weather-permitting) we'll visit a playground and see which of these variables affects a swing's period the most.

General Science: Indicators for acids and bases

This week we learned about acids and bases and two types of indicators you can use to identify them. We began by using red and blue litmus paper to test different household liquids. We were then able to classify them as acids, bases, or neutral. However while litmus paper is useful, it doesn't tell you anything about how strong or weak a base or acid is. So, for example, while baking soda and bleach, the two bases we encountered, score the same on a litmus test, baking soda tastes mildly bitter whereas tasting bleach will land you in the hospital (hypothetically speaking, of course!). We observed that in order to appreciate this without landing in the hospital, pH paper comes in real handy.