Tag: STEM’
14 DIY Halloween Science Projects for Kids
- by KitchenPantryScientist
Turn your kitchen table into the coolest mad science lab in the neighborhood. Click on the project name for a link to instructions and to read about the “Science Behind the Fun.” Most of these projects can be found in my book “Kitchen Science Lab for Kids,” the perfect gift for any young scientist!
1. Frankenworms– Bring gummy worms to “life” using baking soda and vinegar.
2. Alien Monster Eggs– Make creepy, squishy monster eggs.
3. Oozing Monster Heads– Combine science and art to create Halloween fun.
4. Bag of Blood– Amaze your friends with this magical science trick.
9. Magic Potion– Make a color-changing, foaming potion using red cabbage and water.
10. Halloween Soda Explosion– The classic Diet Coke and Mentos explosion is perfect for Halloween.
11. Foaming Alien Blood– Bring the X-Files to your kitchen with this creepy green fake blood
12. Mad Scientist’s Green Slime– Because everyone loves slime
13. Homemade Fake Blood– It’s simple to make non-toxic fake blood in your kitchen.
14. Fizzy Balloon Ghosts– Draw scary faces on balloons and inflate them using baking soda and vinegar.
Homemade Gelatin Printing Plates for Leaf Prints
- by KitchenPantryScientist
When dissolved in hot water and allowed to cool, gelatin molecules trap water to create what scientists call a colloid, or a gel. When glycerin is added to a gel, it becomes slippery, so paper won’t stick to it and can be used to make beautiful prints that capture the character and anatomy of a leaf. I’m obsessed with this fun, easy science/art project. Parental supervision is recommended when adding the boiling water to the gelatin.
You’ll need:
1.5 cups vegetable glycerin ( around 375 ml) (I’d recommend ordering this online, since it’s cheaper.
1/2 cup cold water
112 grams powdered plain gelatin (four 1oz boxes of plain Knox gelatine, near Jell-O in the grocery aisle
1 and 1/2 cups boiling water
heat-resistant mixing bowl
kitchen strainer/sieve (optional)
liquid measuring cup
large, flat container, such as a casserole dish or rimmed baking sheet
paper towels
paper
a small paint roller or brayer
liquid acrylic paint
leaves
Directions”
- Place 1/2 cup cold water in a bowl.
- Pour half of the glycerin liquid into the water and mix slowly to avoid bubbles.
- Sprinkle the gelatin powder into the water/glycerin and stir/mash together.
- Add boiling water and stir carefully, mashing up the lumps until the gelatin dissolves.
- Put the mixture through the sieve to remove any lumps of undissolved gelatin.
- Add the remaining glycerin to the strained gelatin mixture.
- Slowly stir to thoroughly blend all ingredients, being careful not to introduce bubbles.
- Pour the mixed liquid into the large, flat container.
- Use a paper towel to skim any bubbles off the surface of your gelatin mix
- Let the gelatin sit undisturbed for an hour or two, and then put it in the refrigerator for 2 hours.
- While the plate solidifies, find some fresh leaves. Use a book or app to try to identify the leaves you picked.
- When the gelatin plate is ready, you can leave it in the container or remove it. (I left it in the casserole dish.) Use the roller to apply paint to the gelatin
- Lay some leaves on the paint and use a finger to smooth each part of the leaf down into the paint. To highlight the veins on the leaf, lightly roll paint over the leaf.
- Carefully put a piece of paper down on top of the leaves and paint. Use your fingers to smooth the top sheet of paper and transfer the paint. Lift the paper to reveal the leaf prints.
- Peel the leaves off the painted gel and place them between two sheets of paper to make a positive print. Smooth the paper to transfer the paint and separate the paper to see the images.
- The gelatin plate can be reused with different paint colors. Just wash the gel plate with a wet paper towel between uses, and store it between pieces of saran wrap. It should keep for a few weeks.
Invisible Ink
- by KitchenPantryScientist
Write secret messages using baking soda and water and make the big reveal using a bright yellow spice called turmeric!
(safety note: small children should be supervised around rubbing alcohol. It is poisonous.)
You’ll need:
1 Tbsp. baking soda
1 tsp. turmeric
rubbing alcohol
cotton swabs
paper
Instructions:
For invisible ink, mix 1 Tbsp. baking soda into 1/2 cup water
For revealing paint, mix 1 tsp. turmeric into 1/2 cup rubbing alcohol (isopropanol)
- Use a cotton swab dipped in invisible ink to write a message or draw a picture on a piece of paper.
- Let the ink dry
- Use a second cotton swab dipped in revealing paint to make the message appear, as if by magic.
The Science Behind the Fun:
Baking soda is white, and when it dries, you can’t see it against the white paper because it is camouflaged and blends into the paper. Turmeric is a kind of chemical called an acid-base indicator that changes color depending on whether it’s in a solution with a high pH, called a base, or a solution with a low pH, called an acid. Baking soda is a base, and turns the turmeric bright red where you wrote the message. Paper has a neutral pH (isn’t an acid or a base), and the turmeric on the paper stays yellow.
Ecology for Kids
- by KitchenPantryScientist
I’m really excited about my newest book, Ecology for Kids. It’s full of activities perfect for Earth Day, or any day when kids want to get their hands into some fun biology projects that teach them about Earth’s ecosystems. ( Ecology for Kids is available everywhere books are sold.)
Click here to watch a TV segment where I demonstrate how to make terrariums (rainforest ecosystems) and expanding cacti (desert ecosystems). I also illustrate ocean acidification using color-changing purple cabbage juice, baking soda, vinegar and carbonated water.
The book was illustrated by Kelly Anne Dalton and photographed by Amber Procaccini. Here’s a peek at a few images from the book, which contains biographies of 25 inspiring ecologists, paired with projects that help kids explore the work of those scientists.
Homemade Holiday Light-Up Ornaments and Crystal Snowflakes
- by KitchenPantryScientist
Use science to make your holidays shine! Here are a few fun ornaments adapted from projects in my book “STEAM Lab for Kids.” Basic instructions can be found below. Buy your own copy of “STEAM Lab for Kids” anywhere books are sold to learn more about the “Science Behind the Fun!” Happy Holidays!
LED Ornaments and Jar Globes:
To make LED ornaments, buy plastic jars or ornaments with removable bases. Use sculpting clay (the kind that won’t harden) to design a scene and add LEDs connected to a coin-cell battery to light your creation. LEDs can be ordered online. See images below.
Epsom Salt Crystal Ornaments:
(Warning: Hot liquids require adult supervision.) To make the Epsom Salt crystals, dissolve 3 cups of Epsom salts in 2 cups of water by heating and stirring until no more crystals are visible. This creates a supersaturated solution. Allow the solution to cool slightly. Hang pipe cleaners formed into snowflakes in jars or hollow ornaments and pour the solution in. When long, needle-like crystals have formed, remove the pipe cleaners from the jars. You can leave them in the ornaments, and drain the liquid.
Think #STEAM! Homemade Holiday Window Stickies
- by KitchenPantryScientist
Gelatin is the substance that makes Jell-O jiggle. See what happens when food coloring molecules move, or DIFFUSE through Jell-O.
This creative science experiment that my kids and I invented lets you play with floatation physics by sprinkling glitter on melted gelatin, watch colorful dyes diffuse to create patterns and then use cookie cutters to punch out sticky window decorations. Water will evaporate from the gelatin, leaving you with paper-thin “stained glass” shapes.
You’ll need
-plain, unflavored gelatin from the grocery store or Target
-food coloring
–a drinking straw or toothpicks
-water
-a ruler
-glitter
*You can use the recipe below for two pans around 8×12 inches, or use large, rimmed cookie sheets for your gelatin. For a single pan, cut the recipe in half.
Step 1. Add 6 packs of plain, unflavored gelatin (1 oz or 28 gm) to 4 cups of boiling water. Stir well until all the gelatin has dissolved and remove bubbles with a spoon.
Step 2. Allow gelatin to cool to a kid-safe temperature. Pour the liquid gelatin into two large pans so it’s around 1-1.5 cm deep. It doesn’t have to be exact.
Step 3. Sprinkle glitter on the gelatin in one pan. What happens?
Step 4. Allow the gelatin to harden in both pans.
Step 5. In the pan with no glitter, use a toothpick dipped in food coloring to make designs in the gelatin. Alternately, use straw to create holes in the gelatin, a few cm apart, scattered across the surface. It works best to poke a straw straight into the gelatin, but not all the way to the bottom. Spin the straw and remove it. Then, use a toothpick or skewer to pull out the gelatin plug you’ve created. This will leave a perfect hole for the food coloring. Very young children may need help.
Step 6. If you poked holes with a straw, add a drop of food coloring to each hole in the gelatin.
Step 7. Let the gelatin pans sit for 24 hours. Every so often, use a ruler to measure the circle of food coloring molecules as they diffuse (move) into the gelatin around them (read about diffusion at the bottom of this post.) How many cm per hour is the color diffusing? Do some colors diffuse faster than others? If you put one pan in the refrigerator and an identical one at room temperature, does the food coloring diffuse at the same rate?
Step 8. When the food coloring has made colorful circles in the gelatin, use cookie cutters to cut shapes from both pans of gelatin (glitter and food coloring), carefully remove them from the pan with a spatula or your fingers, and use them to decorate a window. (Ask a parent first, since some glitter may find its way to the floor!) Don’t get frustrated if they break, since you can stick them back together on the window.
Step 9. Observe your window jellies each day to see what happens when the water evaporates from the gelatin.
When they’re dry, peel them off the window. Are they thinner than when you started? Why? Can you re-hydrate them by soaking the dried shapes in water?
The Science Behind the Fun:
Imagine half a box filled with red balls and the other half filled with yellow ones. If you set the box on something that vibrates, the balls will move around randomly, until the red and yellow balls are evenly mixed up.
Scientists call this process, when molecules move from areas of high concentration, where there are lots of other similar molecules, to areas of low concentration, where there are fewer similar molecules DIFFUSION. When the molecules are evenly spread throughout the space, it is called EQUILIBRIUM.
Lots of things can affect how fast molecules diffuse, including temperature. When molecules are heated up, they vibrate faster and move around faster, which helps them reach equilibrium more quickly than they would if it were cold. Diffusion takes place in gases like air, liquids like water, and even solids (semiconductors for computers are made by diffusing elements into one another.)
Think about the way pollutants move from one place to another through air, water and even soil. Or consider how bacteria are able to take up the substances they need to thrive. Your body has to transfer oxygen, carbon dioxide and water by processes involving diffusion as well.
Why does glitter float on gelatin? An object’s density and it’s shape help determine its buoyancy, or whether it will float or sink. Density is an object’s mass (loosely defined as its weight) divided by its volume (how much space it takes up.) A famous scientist named Archimedes discovered that any floating object displaces its own weight of fluid. Boats have to be designed in shapes that will displace, or push, at least as much water as they weigh in order to float.
For example, a 100 pound block of metal won’t move much water out of the way, and sinks fast since it’s denser than water. However , a 100 pound block of metal reshaped into a boat pushes more water out of the way and will float if you design it well!
What is the shape of your glitter? Does it float or sink in the gelatin?
Here’s a video I made for KidScience app that demonstrates how to make window gellies
Credit: My 11 YO daughter came up with the brilliant idea to stick this experiment on windows. I was just going to dry out the gelatin shapes to make ornaments. Kids are often way more creative than adults!
Soapy Science: Giant Bubbles
- by KitchenPantryScientist
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!
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?
Holiday Science: Candy Cane Art
- by KitchenPantryScientist
Crying over broken candy canes? Cry no more. Make art!
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:
- Preheat oven to 250F.
- Cover cookie sheet with foil
- Place candy canes on foil, not touching each other
- Bake candy canes for around 10 minutes and have an adult check them. They should be stretchy, but not too hot to touch.
- 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?
- If the candy gets to brittle to work with, put it back in the oven for a few minutes to make it soft again.
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.
Coffee Filter Volcano
- by KitchenPantryScientist
(Re-posting one of our favorite experiments!)
Last spring, I went into my daughter’s first grade classroom to do the famous volcano experiment that involves mixing baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and vinegar (acetic acid). Unfortunately, with our hectic schedule there was no time to create a “work of art” volcano from paper mache or clay. So, we made one out of a paper bag. It was a smashing success. Note: It works just as well to use a coffee filter instead of a paper bag.
To make your own paper bag volcano, you’ll need a brown paper lunch sack (or a slightly bigger one like we used), an empty plastic water or soda bottle, a cup of vinegar, red food coloring and about a fourth of a cup of baking soda. *Cone coffee filters make great volcano cones too and work well on small plastic bottles!
Remove the lid from the bottle, invert the brown bag over it, and tear open the bottom of the bag, along the flaps. Then, loosely tape the paper sack so that it fits around the mouth of the bottle. Don’t tape it to the bottle. If you like to draw, you can decorate the bag with markers.. We squashed and tore the bottom of the bag a little, to make it look more mountain-like.
Now, remove the bottle, fill it with the vinegar and add several drops of red food coloring for your “lava.” Place the bag bag over the bottle to hide the lava container.
Place the volcano on a tray or something that will contain overflow and you’re ready for eruption!
Using a folded piece of paper or a small paper cup with the lip pinched into a spout, quickly dump all of the baking soda into your bottle to start the chemical reaction. You’ll see the volcano erupt as the baking soda combines with the vinegar to produce carbon dioxide gas, which is one of the gases spewed by real volcanoes.
If you liked this experiment, try making “fizzy balloons“ with the same ingredients (plus a balloon, of course!) If you want to learn more about carbon dioxide gas and the carbon cycle, here’s a link to a cool video from NASA that explains it using a banana and a chunk of coal.
Cornstarch Frescoes
- by KitchenPantryScientist
Made corn starch frescoes from my book “Outdoor Science Lab for Kids” on @fox9morning today! Mix 2 parts cornstarch with 1 part water, pour out on baking sheet or sidewalk and paint with watercolors or food coloring! (Wear old clothes if painting with food coloring) Let frescoes dry, or wash away with a garden hose.