SCIENCE FUN
AIR Air is all around you. It is made up of many different gasses. The most important gas in air is oxygen. Animals and people need oxygen to live. When you breathe, you are breathing in air, and your body gets the oxygen that you need. Air can t really be seen when you look around you, but there are ways to tell that it is there. Who has a bicycle? What is in the tires that keeps them filled up so that you can ride the bike? Have you seen a fish tank that has a toy inside that blows bubbles? The bubbles are made by air being pushed into the water. How about a balloon? How do I blow up a balloon? What goes inside the balloon? Let s do an experiment. We re going to blow up a balloon with air, but we aren t going to use our own breath. EXPERIMENT Put about a half cup of vinegar into a cup. You may want to put the cup inside of a basin for easy clean-up. Now add 1 tablespoon of baking soda. What happened? The fizzing that you saw was a chemical reaction. The combination of vinegar and baking soda reacted with each other and created a gas called carbon dioxide. Remember that air is made up of gasses. Now put about an inch of vinegar in the bottle of a small, clean soda bottle. Using a funnel, put 1 tablespoon of baking soda inside of a balloon. Making sure that you do not flip the balloon over and dump the baking soda into the bottle, put the open end of the balloon over the top of the bottle. What do you think will happen? Now, while holding the balloon on the bottle securely, tip the balloon up and allow the baking soda to fall into the bottle. What happened? The gas created by the chemical reaction between the vinegar and baking soda filled the balloon with air!
EXPERIMENT Fill a tall, clear glass 3/4 full of water. Add 2 tablespoons of vinegar to the water. Do not stir. Drop 1 raisin into the glass. Watch the raisin drop to the bottom of the glass. Add 1 teaspoon of baking soda to the glass. Do not stir. Remember that vinegar and baking soda react with each other and create carbon dioxide. Watch as the carbon dioxide bubbles attach themselves to the raisin and raise it to the surface. When the bubbles get to the surface of the water, they pop and let go of the raisin. The raisin then falls back to the bottom and starts collecting bubbles again. The raisin is dancing in the glass!
HOT AIR BALLOON Let s make our own hot air balloon. Cut out the attached balloon and basket. Cut the basket from brown construction paper. Cut the balloon from white paper. Glue your basket to a new piece of blue construction paper (the blue will be the sky). Be sure to glue the basket towards the bottom of your paper. Now glue the balloon to your paper about an inch or two above the basket. Use a couple pieces of yarn to make the cables that attach the balloon to the basket. Hot air balloons are very brightly colored. Many of them have pictures, rainbows and designs on them. Decorate your balloon with bright colors. You can use tissue paper, paints, crayons, glitter, whatever you choose.
GRAVITY All things on earth are pulled down towards the center of the earth. The force that is pulling them is called gravity. If I drop my book, will it fly up to the ceiling? Gravity is what makes things fall down, instead of up. A man named Sir Isaac Newton studied gravity. A story is told about him sitting under an apple tree and being hit on the head by a falling apple. The story is probably only partly true. He did observe an apple falling, but it probably did not hit him on the head. After observing the apple, he began to think about it, and thought that instead of just falling, that there was something that he could not see pulling the apple to the ground. He called the something that he couldn t see the force of gravity. Sir Isaac Newton studied gravity so much, that he was able to prove that it was actually gravity that kept the moon in orbit around the earth. Hold 2 identical objects in your hands. If you drop them from exactly the same height, do you think they will hit the ground at the same time? (YES) Now choose 2 different objects. Make sure one is smaller than the other. If you drop them from the same height, do you think they will hit the ground at the same time? (YES) Gravity pulls on all objects with the same force, no matter how much they weigh. They will always fall at the same speed. Now if gravity is what holds us down and keeps us on the ground, what do you think would happen if there was no gravity? Have you ever seen pictures of astronauts in outer space? Are they standing still or floating in the air? They are floating because there is no gravity in space. Let s go outside and try dropping some different objects and test to see if they do fall at the same speed.
SIR ISAAC NEWTON S APPLE TREE We learned that Sir Isaac Newton first discovered gravity when he watched an apple f from a tree. Today we are going to make an apple tree with a falling apple to remind us of his discovery. Cut out the attached tree forms. Cut the trunk from brown paper and the top of the tree from green. Color and cut out the apple below. Choose a new piece of colored paper for your background. First, glue the trunk of your tree onto your paper. Be sure to keep it towards the bottom of your paper. Next glue the top of the tree to your paper, overlapping in with the trunk slightly. Now glue the apple to your paper anywhere between the top of the tree and the bottom of your paper so that it looks like it is falling to the ground. If you would like, you can dip your finger into red paint and make more apples on your apple tree.
LIGHT Can you name some things that give us light? (Sun, stars, lights). The sun is a natural source of light. Without it there would be no life on earth. Plants and trees need it to grow. Animals eat plants. People eat plants as well as animals that eat plants. We would have no food if we had no sun. The sun also warms the earth so that it will not be too cold for living things to survive. Do you think that sunlight has color? What color do you think it is? Sunlight is actually made up of the seven colors in the rainbow red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet! When you see a rainbow in the sky, it is probably raining and sunny at the same time. The rainbow is actually sunlight that has been separated into each of its colors by the raindrops in the sky. EXPERIMENT Let s do an experiment that will let us see the different colors in sunlight. Fill a clear glass with water. Place a mirror inside the glass at an angle. Just let it lean up against the side of the glass making sure that the reflective side is facing up. Turn the glass so that the mirror is facing into the sun. Hold a piece of white paper in front of the glass. Move it around and experiment with angles until you can see a rainbow on the paper. Moving the paper may help make the colors clearer once you do see the rainbow.
SHADOW PUPPETS Light can only travel in a straight line. It cannot go around objects. If you stand with your back to the sun, your shadow will appear on the ground in front of you. That is because your body is blocking the light. Look at your shadow, it is shaped just like you! Let s make some shadow puppets. Cut out these animal shapes from sturdy, dark colored paper. You may wish to poke a hole where the eye is. Attach a stick or pencil to the back of the animal shape. Turn out the lights. Sit facing a blank wall and hold your shadow puppet in front of you. Shine a flashlight on your shadow puppet. Its shadow should appear on the wall. Put on a performance with your puppets!
MAGNETS Today we re going to talk about something really interesting. Does anyone know what these are? (magnets) Magnets come in different sizes and shapes. Two magnets can work together in many different ways. Demonstrate the following: They can stick together. One magnet can pick up another magnet. Some magnets are stronger than others. Sometimes, magnets don t stick together. Sometimes they push each other apart. It looks like one magnet is chasing the other! Can you think of some places at home or here at school where you use magnets? Let s take a few minutes to make our own magnet. Then we will look for different things in our classroom that will stick to it. After exploring the classroom for a few minutes, discuss what students found that did and did not stick to the magnets. Try and determine what the ones that did stick had in common with each other. Pull out a box of objects that you have prepared in advance with some items that will be attracted to a magnet and some items that will not. Have two other empty boxes ready one labeled yes, and one labeled no. Hold up each object. Ask the children to predict if it will stick to the magnet or not. Sort the objects into the yes and no boxes. After they have all been sorted, test the children s predictions. Discuss any errors they may have made, why it did or did not stick, etc.
Attach strips of magnetic tape to the magnet below and use to test different objects to see if they are attracted to the magnet or not.
MAGNET PAINTING Let s paint a picture using magnets. Remember we talked about how one magnet can chase another one? You are going to dip a magnet in paint, and chase it across your paper using a second magnet. Use many different colors to make your picture exciting! Variation: Place a piece of Plexiglas across two chairs, benches or blocks so there is enough open space in between for your arm to move freely under the Plexiglas. Tape a piece of paper on top of Plexiglas. Dip washers and other metal objects in paint and place them on the paper. Hold a magnet under the Plexiglas and begin moving it magnet. The magnet will begin moving the metal objects around the paper to create a picture.
WATER We use water every day. We need to drink water to live. We cook with water, we clean with water. How often do we really think about water though? Look at this cup of water. How can you describe it? (wet, clear, cold, warm, etc.) Will changing the temperature change how the water looks? If I put the cup of water into the freezer and leave it there for a while, what will happen? (Becomes ice) So did the cold temperature in the freezer cause the water to change? If I take the ice from the freezer and leave it in the sun, what will happen to it? (melts) So did the warm temperature cause the ice to change? When you boil water, can you see a cloud or what looks like smoke above the pot? Have you been in the bathroom right after someone takes a hot shower? Does it seem cloudy in there? The clouds that you see above boiling water, or in the bathroom after a hot shower are steam. When water is heated, it becomes steam or vapor. Temperature changes make the way water looks change. Water can take the form of a solid (ice), a liquid (water), or a gas (steam/vapor). Think about a pond or a puddle outside. What happens to the pond or puddle in the winter when it is very cold outside? What happens to the pond or puddle when the sun comes out and it warms up? What are some things that people do to melt ice outside their homes during the winter? What do the trucks spread on the roads when they are slippery? (salt) We re going to experiment with melting ice and talk about what we are seeing. EXPERIMENT Put 3 pie pans on a table. Put an ice cube in each pan. What do you think will melt an ice cube the fastest salt, water or both? Make a graph of children s predictions. Put salt on the ice cube in the first pan. Add water to the second pan to almost cover the ice cube. In the third pan, put salt on the ice cube and add water to almost cover the ice cube. Watch the ice cubes as they begin to melt. Which one is melting faster? Do the ice cubes look different from one another? Write down your observations.
Fill a glass with water. Add an ice cube. EXPERIMENT Lay a piece of string across the ice cube. Do you think it will stick? Pick up the string and see if you can pick up the ice with it. Now lay the string across the ice again, and sprinkle salt over the string and ice cube. Do you think the string will stick this time? Why? Count to ten slowly and then lift the string. The ice cube should be stuck to the string.
WATER We learned that water can appear in different states. It can be solid (snow or ice), liquid (rain), or vapor (steam or clouds). Let s make a project that shows the different ways that we can see water in our world. Cut out the attached cloud shape from white paper. Cut out the rain drop from blue paper. You will need white packing foam to represent snow and/or ice. Choose a colored piece of background paper. columns when you open it back up. Fold it so that you have three Cut out the words solid, liquid and vapor. Glue the word solid at the top of the first column, liquid at the top of the middle column and vapor at the top of the last column. Cut out the words snow, rain and clouds. Glue the word snow at the bottom of the first column, rain at the bottom of the center column and steam at the bottom of the last column. Glue pieces of packing foam in the center of the first column. Glue the raindrop in the center of the middle column. Glue the cloud in the middle of the last column.
SOLID SNOW LIQUID VAPOR RAIN CLOUD