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We are back after a much needed break from life over the holidays. I hope that your time spent with family and friends was a blessed as ours was. I have so many great ideas that I want to share with you and today is no different.
For today's experiment you will need: Alka-Seltzer Tablets Water Vegetable Oil Food Coloring Jar Flashlight (optional)
If you remember before Christmas we shared with you our experiments on Matter. Theracingof liquids was a lot of fun. This time around we took another lesson on matter to another level. This is an experimentwe had done before; back when BabyBear was only a preschooler. It was so much fun then and even more so now. What I liked about this time around is that she is old enough to grasp more of the science behind what we were doing.
We took water and food coloring and mixed them together to show her what happens when mixing 2 liquids. Of course it turned the water her favorite color - PURPLE !! To this we added in some vegetable oil. This is where you saw her excitement really rise up. She loved the fact that the oil started to float on top of the water looking like a brain.
We talked about how many liquids at home are mixtures of 2 or more liquids. Some are solutions of water mixed with things like hydrogen peroxide or apple juice. Most others found in the home are what we call mechanical mixtures. Where two liquids remain the separate until they are shaken together. One of the most common examples of this would be our oil and vinegar style salad dressings...YUMM!!
Many of the foods we eat are both oily and watery. The oil sticks to our dishes and then the dish soap breaks down the oil and washes it away. You will find these kinds of mixtures not just in your kitchen but all over the place. One sad fact of today's world is the oil that leaks in to our waterways and coats our sea life and birds. We were part of an Aquarium group last year where we saw an experiment run by one of the families using cut hair from a salon that was wrapped in nylon stockings to roll in oil filled water. The result was the oil was soaked up and the water was left free and clear, Making it safe once again for those animals that may be living here. How amazing is that option? We all get our hair cut so why not reuse it to help the environment. I love it!!
Now for the exciting part of our day. We decided to take our science experiment one step further and use our mixture to create a lava lamp of sorts. We did this by adding some Alka-Seltzer tablets to our mechanical mixture. The resulting excitement is seen in this video...ENJOY!!
That's all for today - thank you for stopping by. See you again next week when we explode on to the scene with our newest experiment.
