On Friday the school participated in Science Week.
Here are some of the experiments that 5th & 6th class carried out in class.
Floating M&Ms
The materials used to color the m&m aren’t afraid of water, so they dissolve quickly and make rainbow colored water! The chocolate on the other hand did not dissolve quickly, but we wanted to see the floating m!
And there it is! The floating m! Why does the m float? Some parts of this favorite candy are water soluble. What does water soluble mean? It dissolves in water of course! Water molecules are able to surround the molecules of the solid and dissolve it into the water.
With this floating M activity you can see the colored shell of the candy is water soluble. However, the special m is not! As the shell dissolves, the M floats free.
Raining Blood
Coloured oil that sinks into water having an appearance that looks like Raining blood. ... So if you put food colouring and oil, the mixture will have greater density than water. So gravity will pull it down to the bottom of the jar
Floating Rice Bottle
When you insert the chopstick into the bottle of packed rice, it takes up additional space inside of the bottle. Because rice is not fluid and has great difficulty moving up the neck of the bottle to compensate for the space that the chopstick takes up, the packed rice has very little room to move so it tends to press against the sides of the bottle. The chopstick gets wedged between the rice and the sides of the bottle. Friction helps to hold the chopstick in the bottle as the bottle is lifted into the air.
Balloon Baking Soda Vinegar Experiment
LET’S GET STARTED WITH BALLOON BAKING SODA SCIENCE!
- Blow up balloon a bit to stretch it out some.
- Use the funnel and teaspoon to add baking soda to the balloon. We started with 2 teaspoons and added a teaspoon for each balloon.
- Fill container with Vinegar half way
- When your balloons are all made attach to containers making sure you have a good seal!
- Lift up balloon to dump baking soda into the container of vinegar
- Watch the balloon fill up
- To get the most gas out of it, we swirled around the container to get it all going!
Traveling Water Experiment
As the candle goes out, all of the water is sucked up into jar. The water rises! But why does water rise?
At first, the flame heats the air inside the container and this hot air expands quickly. Some of the expanding air escapes from under the glass where you might have seen some bubbles. When the flame fades and goes out, the air in the container cools and cooler air contracts or takes up less space. That contraction creates a weak vacuum – or lower pressure – in the container. Where’s the higher pressure? Right! It’s outside the container pressing down on the water in the dish. The outside air pushes water into the container until the pressure is equalized inside and outside the container. The water stops rising when that pressure equalization is reached.
Marshmallow Catapult
Create a triangular base of your catapult using three marshmallows and three skewers. Each marshmallow will be the corners of the triangle, with the skewers forming the sides. Pierce the skewers into the marshmallows to hold it all together.
Now use three more skewers and one marshmallow to create a pyramid on top of the triangular base. Pierce a skewer into each corner marshmallow and bring all three to a point, using a marshmallow at the point to hold it all together.
You may want to reinforce the point with a second rubber band wound around the three skewers to hold them together, in addition to the marshmallow.
Now make the catapult mechanism. Tape the spoon to the final skewer.
Place the rubber band over the point of the pyramid. Thread the skewer/spoon catapult through the rubber band and pierce the end into one of the corner marshmallows.
Put a marshmallow onto the bowl of the spoon, bend it back against the rubber band and let it go. Your marshmallow should fly through the air. Keep your eye on it if you want to eat it!
Obleck
Start with the water in a bowl and start adding the cornflour to it. You can use a spoon at first, but pretty quickly you'll be moving on to using your hand to stir it up.
When you're getting close to adding 1.5 cups of the corn starch, start adding it in more slowly and mixing it in with your hand. The goal is to get a consistency where the Oobleck reaches a state that is the liquid and yet solid.
Sometimes you will need more cornflour. If so, keep adding more than the initial 1.5 cups. If you add too much, just add some water back into it. You will have to play with it to see what feels appropriately weird.
Now that the Oobleck is just right, it's time to add some color. We save this step for later because it's a fun challenge to stir in the food coloring. You will have to slowly mix the Oobleck around to get it thoroughly mixed.
No go ahead and play with the Oobleck. That's the point of all this and you can find lots of tricks to try out. Here's a short list:
- Grab a handful, squeeze it, and let it ooze out your fingers.
- Make a puddle and quickly drag your fingers through it.
- Put it into a plastic container and shake it or quickly bump it against a table.
- Jab at the Oobleck and then slowly let your finger sink in.
