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learning activity

Discover how music creates vibrations you can see using salt and a portable speaker! Then try experimenting with different genres of music to see which ones make the salt dance more. What's going on? Speakers, like your Bluetooth speaker, produce sound by creating vibrations in the air. Normally, we only hear these vibrations, and we can't easily see them. Plastic wrap, though, is lightweight and thin enough to vibrate in response to the sounds coming from the speakers. These vibrations move through the plastic wrap unevenly, pushing and shoving the salt around in interesting patterns. As a song progresses, these vibrations change, and the salt moves as if it were dancing. If you can find a YouTube video of a pure tone (like a single, sustained note), observe what happens to the salt when you play that tone through the speakers. A pure tone will create a consistent, unchanging vibration in the plastic wrap. Instead of dancing around, the salt should collect in places in the plastic wrap that aren't vibrating, making patterns that depend on the frequency of the pure tone. Try a few other pure tones, one at a time, to see some other interesting patterns!

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With the speaker facing up, tape six popsicle sticks around the outside of the speaker. 

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Cut a piece of plastic wrap large enough to cover and stretch tightly over the top of the popsicle sticks and secure with a rubber band.  

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Sprinkle salt onto the plastic wrap. Then, connect the speaker to the cell phone, play a song, and watch the salt move to the music! Troubleshooting: If the salt isn’t moving, first try increasing the volume. If it still isn’t moving, try moving the plastic wrap closer to the speaker by shortening the distance between the top of the popsicle sticks and the speaker. Optional: To see the salt more clearly, try dyeing it with food coloring! Simply combine salt and one or two drops of food coloring in a sandwich bag and shake the bag until fully mixed.

speaker (bluetooth)

cell phone

popsicle stick (6)

tape

plastic wrap

rubber band

salt

food coloring (optional)

Dancing Salt

chemical reactions

chemistry

quick experiment

science project

art-science projects

Have you ever seen a lava lamp? All of the colorful wax that rises and falls, bobbing around--it's mesmerizing! You've probably wondered how to make one. This is an easy science experiment that you can do at home to create your very own homemade lava lamp. And it only takes a few common household ingredients!Looking for ways to keep your young scientist engaged and learning? Learn about chemistry and practice art skills with <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/us/store/dp/planet-bath-bombs/3702" target="_self">Planet Bath Bombs</a> from the <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/store" target="_self">KiwiCo Store</a>!

We love watching the bubbles in a lava lamp dance. But before they get their groove on, there’s a lot of chemistry that has to happen! When you add the oil and water to your bottle, you’ll see that the water sinks to the bottom and the oil sits on top. Try shaking up the bottle (don’t forget to put the cap on) and see what happens. No matter how hard you shake, the oil and water won’t mix together — they’ll always separate out again! There are two reasons that oil and water don’t mix. The first reason has to do with something chemists call polarity. Water is made up of polar molecules. That means each molecule has a positive charge on one end and a negative charge on the other end. Positive and negative ends stick together kind of like magnets. Oil is made up of non-polar molecules. That means they don't have a positive or negative charge. Since the water molecules are looking for a positive or negative charge, they won’t mix with the oil molecules. The second reason has to do with something called density. The denser something is, the more stuff there is packed into it. If you weigh a cup of water and a cup of oil, the water weighs more. That means the water is more dense than the oil, which is why it sinks to the bottom! But there are ways that you can mix them up! Adding the fizzy tablet will create a chemical reaction that causes carbon dioxide gas bubbles to form. Water droplets will stick to the bubbles and hitch a ride to the top of the bottle. Once the bubbles escape, the water droplets will sink back below the oil. It is a density disco, polarity party, and a bubbly ballet all in one!

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Fill the container ⅘ full with vegetable oil. 

We used a funnel, but it’s not necessary! 

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Fill the rest of the container (almost to the top!) with water. If the container is too full it might overflow when you add the fizzy tablets! 

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Add a few drops of food coloring. They should sink to the bottom of the container and color the water. 

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Break up a fizzy tablet and drop it into the container and watch your lava lamp come to life! 

Want to experiment more? Try making a glow-in-the dark lava lamp. Instead of tap water, use quinine water (aka tonic water) and no food coloring. Place your lava lamp under a blacklight to light it up! 

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container

vegetable oil

water

food coloring

fizzy tablets

Fizzy Lava Lamp

learning game

What's the best way to clean a penny? What chemicals do the best cleaners have in common? Give this experiment a try and find out.

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We were curious to find out if we could figure out a good way to clean a penny.  What would it take?

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Madeleine went to the fridge, and chose a few things that she thought had potential cleaning power.
Pickle juice, ketchup, lemon juice, and vinegar and oil salad dressing.
We put a tablespoon or so into little cups.

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And we chose four pennies that looked to be about the same color...and one very shiny one with which to compare them.
Pennies turn dark because their copper atoms combine with oxygen (our air) and form copper oxide.  We are hoping that acid will get rid of that outer coating, and restore our pennies to their shiny, beautiful selves.

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We plopped one penny into each liquid, and left them in there for about 10 minutes.  

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Okay!  Now it was time to see if anything has happened.  We took the penny out of the messy ketchup....

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Maddie was thrilled to see how clean the "ketchup penny" was! She cleaned it off with a paper towel, and put that one next to the ketchup cup, so we know which cup it came from...

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Oooh!
Ketchup is the cleanest!  But not very shiny.  Lemon juice is a very close second!  And pickle juice not very far behind.  Oil and vinegar is the shiniest, and is taking it off the oxidation bits and pieces.
What would happen if we left them for longer?
And what would make the pennies shiny again?  Salt?  Baking soda?
Why don't you go find out?  Scientific minds want to know!


pennies

cups

various liquids

Bright as a Penny

Did you know that you can create your own cloud in a bottle with just a few easy steps? Follow along with this simple DIY (or watch the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aiw4sp0dqkI">video tutorial</a>) to learn about how clouds form, while creating you own cloud in a bottle!Interested in the science of pressure? Learn about how pressure makes volcanos erupt with a <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/us/store/dp/professions-geologist/5846" target="_self">Geologist Starter Kit</a> from the <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/store" target="_self">KiwiCo Store</a>!

Do not point the bottle at anyone as you pump it up, and wear eye protection for this experiment.

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Use the awl to make a small hole in the bottle cap.

For our younger scientists, ask for a grownup’s help with this step!

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Slide the needle of your pump into the hole, and add some clay to the inside of the cap. Squeeze the bottle to make sure it's air-tight. 

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Pour a small amount (roughly 1 tablespoon) of rubbing alcohol into your empty bottle and screw the cap back on. 

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Swish the rubbing alcohol around so that it covers the walls on the inside of the bottle. 

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Pump up the bottle! The more you pump, the more dramatic your result will be! We pumped about 40 times. Just make sure to keep the bottle air-tight.

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When you're done pumping, hold onto the bottle firmly and twist open the cap to release the pressure. (A loud popping noise will occur, so any onlookers around may want to plug their ears.) A cloud will instantly form inside!

So what's happening?&nbsp;This trick works thanks to pressure. The more air you pump into the bottle, the more you increase both the pressure and the temperature inside the bottle. (We could actually see the air pressure push out the bottom of our bottle!) This makes some of the alcohol and water droplets in the bottle turn into a vapor.

large empty plastic bottle

clay

ball pump

rubbing alcohol (isopropyl alcohol)

Instant Cloud in a Bottle

explosions

With your kitchen as your lab and baking supplies as your ingredients, create your own underwater firework spectacular! These underwater fireworks go off because of density. Density means how much something weighs for a given volume of it. Denser things like iron and stone sink. Less dense things like wood and rubber float. In this experiment, you use four different liquids with four different densities: oil, water, food coloring, and saltwater. The oil sits on top of the water because it’s less dense than water. The water sits on top of the saltwater for the same reason. Food coloring is denser than oil and a little bit denser than water, but it isn’t as dense as saltwater. When the drops of food coloring hit the dense saltwater, they disperse like exploding fireworks!Eager to learn more about the world around us? Explore the science of volcanic eruptions with a <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/us/store/dp/professions-geologist/5846">Geologist Starter Kit</a> from the <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/store">KiwiCo Store</a>!

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Pour salt into the bottle until there is a thin layer of salt on the bottom. 

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Pour warm water into the bottle so that the bottle is about ¼ full. Mix the salt and water until all of the salt has dissolved and the water has cooled. 

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Pour cold freshwater into the bottle until the water level is about ¾ high. 

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Pour oil into the bottle, so that there is about ½” of oil floating on top of the water. 

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Add a spoonful of oil into a small bowl followed by a few drops of food dye.

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Stir until the large beads of dye have broken up into a bunch of small beads of dye. 

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Gently pour the mixture into the bottle. Then, watch as the food dye begins to seep into the water! What happens when it reaches the saltwater layer?

You probably have lots of liquids with different densities in your home. With adult supervision, try mixing some together to see which float and which sink. You can use your discoveries to make more underwater fireworks or other density representations! Some good liquids to try are corn syrup, rubbing alcohol, dish soap, milk, maple syrup, honey, and lamp oil. 

bottle (clear)

warm water

cool water

Small Bowl

stirring stick

Underwater Fireworks

food science

When you have three little curious boys running around your house and a free afternoon, why not get a little messy and do some kitchen science? We did ours in the backyard and let the whole thing become a super sensory experience. When they inevitably try and find the remains of their apple in the mound of foam, be sure to ask them what it feels like.Want to explore more kitchen science experiments? Explore the tastier side of learning with <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/us/store/dp/science-of-cooking-bread-butter-project-kit/5463">Science of Cooking: Bread &amp; Butter</a> from the <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/store">KiwiCo Store</a>!

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Add 1 cup of baking soda, 1 tablespoon of soap, and 1 teaspoon of water to a small bowl. Start mixing them together with your hands. 

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If you want to make a colored apple, add about a teaspoon of liquid water color (we used one pipette of lime green or red). Keep mixing until it comes together and you can shape it into a ball.If it is too crumbly, add a little bit of water at a time to bring it together. If it is too mushy, add more baking soda to make it firmer.

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When you've got a nice doughy consistency, scrape the mixture out of your bowl and roll it together into a ball. Add a leaf to complete your apple.

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To make your apple erupt, put about a cup of vinegar into a squeeze bottle and place your apple into a bowl. This will get messy so make sure everything is in a tray to catch anything that overflows. Now squirt some vinegar onto your apple and watch it erupt!

What's going on?
What you see happening to the apples is a chemical reaction, and in a chemical reaction, the molecules change! Vinegar reacts with baking soda and one product of that reaction is carbon dioxide gas. This is explains the fun fizzy bubbles that erupt from your apples!

1 cup baking soda

1 cup vinegar

1 tbsp water

1 tbsp liquid soap - (baby shampoo / dish soap)

tray - (something to contain the mess)

squeeze bottle

pipette - (optional)

liquid watercolors - (optional)

Erupting Apples

egg experiment

edible experiments

spring

egg projects

Is a square egg possible? Not in nature - but you can re-shape a hard-boiled egg in just a few easy steps!Discover everything that eggs have to offer with <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/us/store/dp/eggsperiments-project-kit/2979">Eggsperiments</a> from the <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/store">KiwiCo Store</a>! Use the scientific method with a series of egg-based experiments that explore chemistry, physics, and biology.

When you hard boil an egg, molecular chemistry is at work. Eggs are made up mostly of two kinds of molecules: protein and water. The proteins in a raw egg are like twisted and folded strings, floating in a watery soup. They’re held that way by weak chemical bonds within the protein (and by the water, which pushes on different parts of the protein).
 When you heat up the egg, though, the proteins start moving and shaking. They shake so much that they break their weak bonds and unfold. As they unfold, the proteins end up making new, stronger chemical bonds between each other. That turns the egg into a latticework of protein, with water trapped in between. This is what’s going on when the boiled egg turns from transparent to white.
 
Once the boiled egg cools down, the proteins settle and the bonds solidify to make the rubbery egg we’re familiar with. When they’re still hot, though, the bonds between the proteins are moldable, kind of like clay. What would happen, then, if you molded an egg before it cooled down? Try it out in this project and see for yourself!

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Make a 1 ½-inch square box out of the cereal box. Fold it together inside out, so the waxy outside of the cereal box is on the inside. Tape the box together. 

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Place two eggs in the bottom of the pot and cover with water. Bring the water to a rolling boil. Continue boiling for 10 minutes. Then, remove from heat. You may need a grown-up to assist you. 

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Use the slotted spoon to remove one egg from the pot, and set it aside. Then, remove the second egg and use paper towels to peel it. 

The eggs will be very hot! Be careful when handling them. 

Dip the peeled egg back in the pot to remove any remaining egg shell. 

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Place the peeled egg into the box, pointy end down. 

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Carefully close the box and wrap a rubber band around it. Then, leave the box in the refrigerator for about 2 hours. 

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After two hours, take the box out of the refrigerator. Remove the rubber band, and take out the egg. 

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Peel the first egg. Then, cut into both eggs and compare them! What other shapes can you make? 

There are lots of other egg-citing projects you can do with eggs! See what happens when you leave an <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/diy/Science-Projects-for-Kids/3/project/Egg-in-Vinegar-Experiment/2765" target="_blank">egg in vinegar</a>, or search “egg” above for more ideas!

Panda Crate

Sprout: Koala Crate

Labs: Kiwi Crate

World: Atlas Crate

Studio: Doodle Crate

Labs: Tinker Crate

Studio: Maker Crate

Labs: Eureka Crate

77 awesome experiment projects for kids

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