From surface tension to evaporation, science come into play every time you blow a bubble. Here’s some bubble science, along with a recipe for making giant bubbles from my book Outdoor Science Lab for Kids!

Water molecules like to stick to each other , and scientists call this sticky, elastic tendency  “surface tension.” Soap molecules, have a hydrophobic (water-hating) end and (hydrophilic) a water-loving end and can lower the surface tension of water. When you blow a bubble, you create a thin film of water molecules sandwiched between two layers of soap  molecules, with their water-loving ends pointing toward the water, and their water-hating ends pointing out into the air.

As you might guess, the air pressure inside the elastic soapy sandwich layers of a bubble is slightly higher than the air pressure outside the bubble. Bubbles strive to be round, since the forces of surface tension rearrange their molecular structure to make them have the least amount of surface area possible, and of all three dimensional shapes, a sphere has the lowest surface area. Other forces, like your moving breath or a breeze can affect the shape of bubbles as well.

The thickness of the water/soap molecule is always changing slightly as the water layer evaporates, and light is hitting the soap layers from many angles, causing light waves to bounce around and interfere with each other, giving the bubble a multitude of colors.

Try making these giant bubbles at home this summer! They’re a blast! (It works best a day when it’s not too windy, and bubbles love humid days!)

To make your own giant bubble wand, you’ll need:

-Around 54 inches of cotton kitchen twine

-two sticks 1-3 feet long

-a metal washer

1. Tie string to the end of one stick.

2. Put a washer on the string and tie it to the end of the other stick so the washer is hanging in-between on around 36 inches of string. (See photo.) Tie remaining 18 inches of string to the end of the first stick. See photo!

This bubble wand is a little longer than 18 inches on a side.

For the bubbles:

-6 cups distilled or purified water

-1/2 cup cornstarch

-1 Tbs. baking powder

-1 Tbs. glycerine (Optional. Available at most pharmacies.)

-1/2 cup blue Dawn. The type of detergent can literally make or break your giant bubbles. Dawn Ultra (not concentrated) or Dawn Pro  are highly recommended. We used Dawn Ultra, which is available at Target.

1. Mix water and cornstarch. Add remaining ingredients and mix well without whipping up tiny bubbles. Use immediately, or stir again and use after an hour or so.

2. With the two sticks parallel and together, dip bubble wand into mixture, immersing all the string completely.

3. Pull the string up out of the bubble mix and pull them apart slowly so that you form a string triangle with bubble in the middle.

4. Move the wands or  blow bubbles with your breath. You can “close” the bubbles by moving the sticks together to close the gap between strings.

What else could you try?

-Make another wand with longer or shorter string. How does it affect your bubbles?

-Try different recipes to see if you can improve the bubbles. Do other dish soaps work as well?

-Can you add scent to the bubbles, like vanilla or peppermint, or will it interfere with the surface tension?

-Can you figure out how to make a bubble inside another bubble?

Crying over broken candy canes? Cry no more. Make art!

Candy Cane Art- image KitchenPantryScientist.com

This project is from “Amazing (Mostly) Edible Science,” by Andrew Schloss.  For a cookbook full of delicious recipes and the Science-Behind-the-Fun, buy my book Kitchen Science Lab for Kids: Edible Edition here!

*Melted candy can get dangerously hot, so parental supervision is required!

You’ll need:

-candy canes (broken or whole), wrappers removed

-heavy-duty aluminum foil

-a cookie sheet

-a wire cooling rack

-an oven

What to do:

1. Preheat oven to 250F.
2. Cover cookie sheet with foil
3. Place candy canes on foil, not touching each other
4. Bake candy canes for around 10 minutes and have an adult check them. They should be stretchy, but not too hot to touch.
5. When the candy canes are ready, bend, fold, twist and pull them into cool shapes. Try pulling one long and wrapping it around a chopstick to make a spiral. What else could you try?
6. If the candy gets to brittle to work with, put it back in the oven for a few minutes to make it soft again.

Candy Cane Art- image KitchenPantryScientistcom

The science behind the fun:

If you looks at the ingredients of candy canes, they’re usually made of table sugar (sucrose), corn syrup, flavoring, and food coloring. Glucose and fructose are sweet-tasting molecules that stick together to make up most of the sugars we eat, like table sugar (sucrose) and corn syrup. You can think of them as the building blocks of candy.

At room temperature, candy canes are hard and brittle, but adding heat changes the way the molecules behave. Both table sugar and corn syrup contain linked molecules of glucose and fructose, but corn syrup has much more fructose than glucose, and the fructose interferes with sugar crystal formation. According to Andrew Schloss, “the corn syrup has more fructose, which means the sugar crystals in the candy don’t fit tightly together. The crystals have space between them, which allows them to bend and move without cracking.”

Here’s a great article on the science of candy-making.

If you’re looking for holiday gifts for a science-loving kid, my books Chemistry Lab for Kids, Kitchen Science Lab for Kids and Outdoor Science Lab for Kids include over 100 fun family-friendly experiments! They’re available wherever books are sold.

Here’s some fun footage of kids doing projects from Kitchen Science Lab for Kids. I miss those mask-less photo shoots! (Book Photos by Amber Procaccini and illustrations by @kellyannedalton.) If you’ve got a young scientist on your list, “CHEMISTRY FOR KIDS -Homemade Science Experiments and Activities Inspired by Awesome Chemists, Past and Present” is available everywhere books are sold!

(Adapted from Kitchen Science Lab for Kids)

Grab an extra bag of cranberries this Thankgiving! Kids can use it to reveal invisible messages they write with baking soda and water.

You’ll need:

-around 2 cups of cranberries

-water

-baking soda

-printer paper

-small paintbrush, Q-tip, or lollipop stick

Safety tips and Hints:

Boiling the berries should be done by an adult. Keep the lid on the pan, since the air pockets that make cranberries float can also make them explode. Kids can take over once the juice is cool.

When playing with cranberry juice, aprons or old clothes are a good idea, since it stains!

Directions:

Step 1.  Cut a cranberry in half and observe the air pockets that make it float.

Step 2. Boil the cranberries in about three cups of water for 15 to 20 minutes, covered. Listen for popping sounds as the air in the cranberries heats up and they explode.

Step 3. Crush the cooked berries and push the liquid through a sieve or colander to collect the concentrated cranberry juice.

Step 4. Allow the juice to cool and pour it into a casserole dish or cake pan big enough to hold a piece of paper.  If your cranberry juice seems thick and syrupy, add a little water, so that it’s thin enough to soak into paper!

Step 5. Test the paper you want to use by cutting a small piece and soaking it in the cranberry juice. If it stays pink, it will work, but if it turns blue or gray, try some other paper.

Step 6. Add a few teaspoons of baking soda to 1/3 cup of warm water and stir well. Don’t worry if you can still see some baking soda.

Step 7.  Using a Q-tip, paintbrush, or a homemade writing tool, use the baking soda solution as ink to write a message on your paper.  It may take a little practice, so don’t get frustrated.

Step 8. Let your message air dry, or speed things up with a blow dryer.

Step 9. To reveal your message, place your paper in the cranberry juice and see what happens!

*What other natural acid/base indicators could you use to do this experiment? What else could you use as ink.

The Science Behind the Fun:

Cranberries contain pigments called anthocyanins (an-tho-SY-a-nins,) which give them their bright color. In nature, these pigments attract birds and other animals to fruit.  This is important because animals eat the berries and spread plants seeds from one place to another.

These pigments, called flavanoids, change color when they come in contact with acids and bases.  Cranberry juice is very acidic, and the pigment is pink in acids, but when you add it to a base, it turns purple or blue.

Baking soda is a base, so your baking soda message will turn blue when it comes into contact with the pigments in the cranberry juice.  Eventually, when enough cranberry juice soaks into the paper, it will dilute the baking soda, turning the pigment back to red and your message will disappear!

There are over 300 kinds of anthocyanins which are found in many fruits and vegetables including blueberries, red cabbage, grapes and blueberries.  Scientists believe they may have many health benefits.

Make mini “lava lamps” from water, baking soda and oil to test whether candy contains citric acid!

The science behind the fun: Oil floats on water because it is less dense. When citric acid in candy combines with baking soda, a chemical reaction occurs which produces carbon dioxide gas bubbles. As the bubbles move up through the oil, they carry water and food coloring with them. Once the gas escapes into the air, gravity pulls the water and food coloring back down through the oil.to the bottom of the container.

If you have balloons, straws and string, you can send a balloon rocket shooting up a string to watch Newton’s third law of motion in action. As the air escapes the balloon in one direction, it sends the balloon rocket in the opposite direction! Art lovers will have fun making beautiful evaporation rings using vinegar, food coloring and cornstarch, and if you’re into engineering, order a small motor and some alligator clips to make a bristle robot!

Here’s a segment I did for TV last week, featuring of projects from Chemistry for Kids, which pairs the story of 25 scientists with hands-on projects related to their work! In the clip, I demonstrate how to collect essential oils from flowers, citrus or herbs using a crock pot and how to do a precipitation experiment similar to one Marie Curie used to extract radium from mining waste.

I joined the hosts of Twin Cities Live yesterday to show off three projects from my newest book! Chemistry for Kids is available everywhere books are sold!

Wednesday, April 22nd is Earth Day, but there’s no reason we can’t celebrate all month long. Besides hiking and exploring, here are some of our favorite environmental science projects. Just click on the experiment names for directions and photos. You can find more fun outdoor experiments in my books “Kitchen Science Lab for Kids” and “Outdoor Science Lab for Kids“ (Quarry Books.)

Homemade Sweep Nets: Make a sweep net from a pillowcase and a hanger to see what arthropods are hanging out in your favorite outdoor spaces.

Homemade Sweep Nets from Outdoor Science Lab for Kids (Quarry Books)

Window Sprouts: Plant a bean in a plastic baggie with a damp paper towel to see how plants need only water and air to sprout roots and leaves.  Here’s a short video demonstrating how to make a window garden.

Window Sprouts from Kitchen Science Lab for Kids Quarto Books

Homemade Solar Oven: Using a pizza box, aluminum foil, plastic wrap, and newspaper, you can harness the sun’s energy to cook your own S’mores!

Nature Walk Bracelets: Wrap some duct tape around your wrist (inside out) and take a walk, sticking interesting natural objects like leaves and flowers to your bracelet. It’s a great way to get outdoors and engage with nature. Bring a bag along so you can pick up any trash you find.

Carbon Dioxide and Ocean Acidity: See for yourself how the carbon dioxide in your own breath can make a water-based solution more acidic. The project illustrates why adding too much carbon dioxide to Earth’s atmosphere can be harmful to ocean creatures.

Ocean Acidification Experiment from Kitchen Science Lab for Kids (Quarry Books)

Plant Transpiration:  See how trees “sweat” in this survival science experiment.

Plant Transpiration experiment from Kitchen Science Lab for Kids

Earthworm Experiment:  Do you know what kind of earthworms are living in your back yard?

Earthworm Eruption from Outdoor Science Lab for Kids (Quarry Books 2018)

Composting: Be a composting detective. Bury some things in your back yard (away from power cables) and dig them up in a few months to see how they look. Composting reduces methane gas emissions (a greenhouse gas) from dumps.

Composting Experiment from Outdoor Science Lab for Kids

Diffusion and Osmosis: See for yourself how the chemicals we add to water, put on our streets to melt ice, and spray on our lawns and crops can move into our soil, ground water, rivers, lakes and oceans.

Diffusion Experiment from Kitchen Science Lab for Kids (Quarry Books)

Solar Water Purification: This project illustrates the greenhouse effect and is a fun “survival science” experiment. Requires hot sun and some patience!

Solar Water Purification from Kitchen Science Lab for Kids

Citizen Science: Don’t forget about all the real environmental research projects you can participate in through Citizen Science programs all around the world!

For mores activities and games, check out NASA’s Climate Kids website, to see a kid-friendly diagram of the water cycle, click here,  or just get outside and enjoy the beautiful planet that sustains and nurtures us.

Physics! Biology! Chemistry! Yeah!

Great job staying isolated to help keep everyone safe! Keep up the good work! Scientists and medical workers are busy testing anti-viral drugs and creating vaccines that will help us to help get life back to normal as soon as humanly possible. They are the superheroes we need right now!

Click HERE for 45 Watch-and-Do Videos for Kids. Some, like cornstarch goo and tie-dye milk are perfect for the younger crowd, while older kids can tackle the tougher projects.

For more detailed instructions, go to kitchenpantryscientist.com and search for the experiment in the search box! You can also order my books online wherever books are sold.