science | From The Committed Heart

Science Fun Day!

Vocabulary Words:

Emulsion: is a mixture of two or more liquids that are normally nonmixable.

Density: the condition of having parts that are close together; the amount of something in a specified volume or area.

Items you’ll need for your experiment:

Small soft drink bottle or a container that has a lid that screws on tightly
Water
Food coloring (We didn’t have any liquid coloring but we did have Amarillo powdered, for our Cuban yellow rice dish 😉 )
2 tablespoons of cooking oil
Dish washing liquid (one or two squirts)

Instructions:

Add a few drops of food coloring to the water.
Pour about 2 tablespoons of the colored water along with the 2 tablespoons of cooking oil into the small soft drink bottle.
Screw the lid on tight and shake the bottle as hard as you can.
Put the bottle back down and have a look, it may have seemed as though the liquids were mixing together but the oil will float back to the top.

We observed oil and water do not mix! Water molecules are strongly attracted to each other, this is the same for oil, because they are more attracted to their own molecules, they just don’t mix together. Oil and water separate and the oil floats above the water because it has a lower density.

Now add some dish washing liquid and shake it up. The soap is attracted to both water and oil, helping them all join together and form something called an emulsion.

Have fun trying to make oil and water mix but remember to screw on the lid tightly 🙂

Today we experimented with baking soda and vinegar which resulted in gas.

Gas Balloon:

Take one small empty plastic soda or water bottle and carefully pour 1/2 cup of vinegar into it.

Then put 1 teaspoon of baking soda in a small balloon. Next carefully put the neck of the balloon all the way over the neck of the bottle without letting any baking soda into the bottle.

Now for the fun part…choose a brave participant to lift the balloon up so that the baking soda falls from the balloon into the bottle and mixes with the vinegar. Watch the balloon fill up. My daughter Victoria said, “I’ll remember this the next time I want to blow up a balloon, so I don’t have to blow it up myself”. Ha! 🙂

Bag Bomb:

Put 1/4 cup of pretty warm water into a small (sandwich size) zip-lock bag. Then add 1/2 cup of vinegar to the water in the bag.

Put 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of baking soda into the middle of a tissue, wrap up the tissue paper by folding it.

Now partially zip the bag closed but leave enough space to add the tissue with the baking soda in it. Once you place the baking soda packet inside the bag, quickly zip it up completely closed and drop it on the ground.

Let the expanding begin and if all goes well, you might just hear a little POP!

So, what just happened?

Take out the science notebooks/logs for the simple explanation. When the baking soda and vinegar are mixed together they create a gas, (carbon dioxide – the stuff we breathe out) gasses need a lot of room and the carbon dioxide starts to fill the bag, and keeps filling the bag until the bag can no longer hold it any more and, POP or Ssss!