This experiment is for advanced students. Hydrolysis is a chemical reaction that involves breaking a molecular bond using water. In chemistry, there are three different types of hydrolysis: sat hydrolysis, acid hydrolysis, and base hydrolysis. In nature, living organisms survive by making their energy from processing food. The energy converted from food is stored in ATP molecules. To release the energy stored in food, a phosphate group breaks off an ATP molecule (and becomes ADP) using hydrolysis and releases energy from the bonds.


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Hydrolysis is a chemical reaction that happens when a molecule splits into two parts when water is added. One part gains a hydrogen (H+) and the other gets the hydroxyl (OH–) group. The reaction in the experiment forms starch from glucose, and when we add water, it breaks down the amino acid components just like the enzymes do in your stomach when they digest food.


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Plasma makes up a very large percentage of the matter in the universe. Not much of it is on Earth and the plasma that is here is very short lived or stuck in a tube. Plasma is basically what happens when you add enough energy to a gas that the atoms move and vibrate around so energetically that they smack into each other and rip electrons off each other, so you have positively charged atoms (called ions) that lost their electrons, and also the electrons themselves which are negatively charged, all zinging around in the gas.
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This experiment is for advanced students.Have you ever taken a gulp of the ocean? Seawater can be extremely salty! There are large quantities of salt dissolved into the water as it rolled across the land and into the sea. Drinking ocean water will actually make you thirstier (think of eating a lot of pretzels). So what can you do if you’re deserted on an island with only your chemistry set?


Let me show you how to take the salt out of water with this easy setup.


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Instead of using glue as a polymer (as in the slime recipes above), we're going to use PVA (polyvinyl alcohol). Most liquids are unconnected molecules bouncing around. Monomers (single molecules) flow very easily and don't clump together. When you link up monomers into longer segments, you form polymers (long chains of molecules).

Polymers don't flow very easily at all - they tend to get tangled up until you add the cross-linking agent, which buddies up the different segments of the molecule chains together into a climbing-rope design.

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When you think of slime, do you imagine slugs, snails, and puppy kisses? Or does the science fiction film The Blob come to mind? Any way you picture it, slime is definitely slippery, slithery, and just plain icky — and a perfect forum for learning real science.


But which ingredients work in making a truly slimy concoction, and why do they work? Let’s take a closer look…


Imagine a plate of spaghetti. The noodles slide around and don’t clump together, just like the long chains of molecules (called polymers) that make up slime. They slide around without getting tangled up. The pasta by itself (fresh from the boiling water) doesn’t hold together until you put the sauce on. Slime works the same way. Long, spaghetti-like chains of molecules don’t clump together until you add the sauce … until you add something to cross-link the molecule strands together.


The sodium-tetraborate-and-water mixture is the “spaghetti” (the long chain of molecules, also known as a polymer), and the “sauce” is the glue-water mixture (the cross-linking agent). You need both in order to create a slime worthy of Hollywood filmmakers.


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The glue is a polymer, which is a long chain of molecules all hooked together like tangled noodles. When you mix the two solutions together, the water molecules start linking up the noodles together all along the length of each noodle to get more like a fishnet. Scientists call this a polymetric compound of sodium tetraborate and lactated glue. We call it bouncy putty.


Here’s what you do:


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This is one of those ‘chemistry magic show’ type of experiments to wow your friends and family. Here’s the scoop: you take a cup of clear liquid, add it to another cup of clear liquid, stir for ten seconds, and you’ll see a color change, a state change from liquid to solid, and you can pull a rubber-like bouncy ball right out of the cup.


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Imagine a plate of spaghetti. The noodles slide around and don’t clump together, just like the long chains of molecules (called polymers) that make up slime. They slide around without getting tangled up. The pasta by itself (fresh from the boiling water) doesn’t hold together until you put the sauce on. Slime works the same way. Long, spaghetti-like chains of molecules (called polymers) don’t clump together until you add the sauce – something that cross-links the molecule strands (polymer) together.
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Did you know that supercooled liquids need to heat up in order to freeze into a solid? It’s totally backwards, I know…but it’s true! Here’s the deal:


A supercooled liquid is a liquid that you slowly and carefully bring down the temperature below the normal freezing point and still have it be a liquid. We did this in our Instant Ice experiment.


Since the temperature is now below the freezing point, if you disturb the solution, it will need to heat up in order to go back up to the freezing point in order to turn into a solid.


When this happens, the solution gives off heat as it freezes. So instead of cold ice, you have hot ice. Weird, isn’t it?


Sodium acetate is a colorless salt used making rubber, dying clothing, and neutralizing sulfuric acid (the acid found in car batteries) spills. It’s also commonly available in heating packs, since the liquid-solid process is completely reversible – you can melt the solid back into a liquid and do this experiment over and over again!


The crystals melt at 136oF (58oC), so you can pop this in a saucepan of boiling water (wrap it in a towel first so you don’t melt the bag) for about 10 minutes to liquify the crystals.


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Find a low pressure (like the pressure you feel right now – it’s called 1 atm). Put your finder on the 1 mark on the vertical side (next to the “P”, which stands for Pressure) and follow the dashed line straight across. As you move across, so you notice how at low temperatures you’re in the ice region, but when you hit zero, you turn to water, and for temperatures below 100 deg C you’re only in the liquid water phase?


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While this isn’t actually an air-pressure experiment but more of an activity in density, really, it’s still a great visual demonstration of why Hot Air Balloons rise on cold mornings.


Imagine a glass of hot water and a glass of cold water sitting on a table, side by side. Now imagine you have a way to count the number of water molecules in each glass. Which glass has more water molecules?


The glass of cold water has way more molecules… but why? The cold water is more dense than the hot water. Warmer stuff tends to rise because it’s less dense than colder stuff and that’s why the hot air balloon in experiment 1.10 floated up to the sky.


Clouds form as warm air carrying moisture rises within cooler air. As the warm, wet air rises, it cools and begins to condense, releasing energy that keeps the air warmer than its surroundings. Therefore, it continues to rise. Sometimes, in places like Florida, this process continues long enough for thunderclouds to form. Let’s do an experiment to better visualize this idea.


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Indoor Rain Clouds

Making indoor rain clouds demonstrates the idea of temperature, the measure of how hot or cold something is. Here’s how to do it:


Take two clear glasses that fit snugly together when stacked. (Cylindrical glasses with straight sides work well.)


Fill one glass half-full with ice water and the other half-full with very hot water (definitely an adult job – and take care not to shatter the glass with the hot water!). Be sure to leave enough air space for the clouds to form in the hot glass.


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When something changes state, goes from like a liquid to a solid, all of the substance must change to the next state. For example, at 100° C all the water must change from a liquid to a gas. The temperature stays constant until it’s completely changed state. It’s kind of weird when you think about it.


If you were able to take the temperature of water as it changed from a solid (ice) to a liquid you would notice that the temperature stays at 32° F until that piece of ice was completely melted. The temperature would not increase at all.


Even if that ice was in an oven, the temperature would stay the same. Once all the solid ice had disappeared, then you would see the temperature of the puddle of water increase.
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As promised, here’s the Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream Social video that was only available to a handful of participants at our live summer camp last week! This is probably one of the last times Dr. Tom Frey will be doing this presentation, so we didn’t want to miss the opportunity to record it and share it with you!


Dr. Tom Frey just retired as a chemistry professor at Cal Poly State University, where he taught courses (including how to make your own lab glassware) for 42 years. He’s not only a mentor of mine, but a close personal friend and I am happy to share his talent and passion for science with you through this special, one of a kind video.


I really hope you enjoy it!


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A liquid has a definite volume (meaning that you can’t compress or squish it into a smaller space), but takes the shape of its container. Think of a water-filled balloon. When you smoosh one end, the other pops out. Liquids are generally incompressible, which is what hydraulic power on heavy duty machinery (like excavators and backhoes) is all about.


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Can we really make crystals out of soap?  You bet!  These crystals grow really fast, provided your solution is properly saturated.  In only 12 hours, you should have sizable crystals sprouting up.


You can do this experiment with either skewers, string, or pipe cleaners.  The advantage of using pipe cleaners is that you can twist the pipe cleaners together into interesting shapes, such as a snowflake or other design.  (Make sure the shape fits inside your jar. )


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Solids
What makes the solids, liquids, gases etc. different is basically the energy (motion) of the atoms. From BEC, where they are so low energy that they are literally blending into one another, to plasma, where they are so high energy they can emit light. Solids are the lowest energy form of matter that exist in nature (BEC only happens under laboratory conditions).


In solids, the atoms and molecules are bonded (stuck) together in such a way that they can’t move easily. They hold their shape. That’s why you can sit in a chair. The solid molecules hold their shape and so they hold you up. The typical characteristics that solids tend to have are they keep their shape unless they are broken and that they do not flow.


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An average can of soda at room temperature measures 55 psi before you ever crack it open. (In comparison, most car tires run on 35 psi, so that gives you an idea how much pressure there is inside the can!)


If you heat a can of soda, you’ll run the pressure over 80 psi before the can ruptures, soaking the interior of your house with its sugary contents. Still, you will have learned something worthwhile: adding energy (heat) to a system (can of soda) causes a pressure increase. It also causes a volume increase (kaboom!).
How about trying a safer variation of this experiment using water, an open can, and implosion instead of explosion?


Materials – An empty soda can, water, a pan, a bowl, tongs, and a grown-up assistant.


NOTE: If you can get a hold of one, use a beer can – they tend to work better for this experiment. But you can also do this with a regular old soda can. And no, I am not suggesting that kids should be drinking alcohol! Go ask a parent to find you one – and check the recycling bin.


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Now let’s take a look at the forces between the molecules themselves. There are four main interactions which really come down to different ways of having opposite charges attract each other.


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A molecule is the smallest unit of a compound that still has the compound’s properties attached to it. Molecules are made up of two or more atoms held together by covalent bonds.


In the space where electrons from different atoms interact with each other, chemical bonds form. The electrons in the outermost shell are the ones that form the bonds with other atoms.


When the atoms share the electron(s), a covalent bond is formed. Electrons aren’t perfect, though, and usually an electron is more attracted to one atom than another, which forms a polar covalent bond between atoms (like in water, H2O).


While it may seem a bit random right now, with a little bit of study, you’ll find you can soon understand how molecules are formed and the shapes they choose once you figure out the types of bonds that can form.


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This experiment is for advanced students.Have you ever taken a gulp of the ocean? Seawater can be extremely salty! There are large quantities of salt dissolved into the water as it rolled across the land and into the sea. Drinking ocean water will actually make you thirstier (think of eating a lot of pretzels). So what can you do if you’re deserted on an island with only your chemistry set?


Let me show you how to take the salt out of water with this easy setup.


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We’re going to take two everyday materials, salt and vinegar, and use them to grow crystals by creating a solution and allowing the liquids to evaporate.  These crystals can be dyed with food coloring, so you can grow yourself a rainbow of small crystals overnight.


The first thing you need to do is gather your materials.  You will need:


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We’re going to take two everyday materials, salt and vinegar, and use them to grow crystals by creating a solution and allowing the liquids to evaporate.  These crystals can be dyed with food coloring, so you can grow yourself a rainbow of small crystals overnight.


The first thing you need to do is gather your materials.  You will need:


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There are different kinds of bonds that can form in a molecule. When two atoms approach each other close enough for their electron clods to interact, the electrons of one repels the electrons in the other, and the same thing happens within the nucleus of the atoms. At the same time, each atom’s negatively charged electron is attracted to the other atom’s positively charged nucleus. If the atoms still come closer, the attractive forces offset the repulsive and the energy of the atom decreases and bonds are formed – the atom sticks together. When the energy decrease is small, the bonds are van der Waals. When the energy decrease is larger, we have chemical bonds, either ionic or covalent.


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If you’ve ever had a shot, you know how cold your arm feels when the nurse swipes it with a pad of alcohol. What happened there? Well, alcohol is a liquid with a fairly low boiling point. In other words, it goes from liquid to gas at a fairly low temperature. The heat from your body is more then enough to make the alcohol evaporate.


As the alcohol went from liquid to gas it sucked heat out of your body. For things to evaporate, they must suck in heat from their surroundings to change state. As the alcohol evaporated you felt cold where the alcohol was. This is because the alcohol was sucking the heat energy out of that part of your body (heat was being transferred by conduction) and causing that part of your body to decrease in temperature.


As things condense (go from gas to liquid state) the opposite happens. Things release heat as they change to a liquid state. The water gas that condenses on your mirror actually increases the temperature of that mirror. This is why steam can be quite dangerous. Not only is it hot to begin with, but if it condenses on your skin it releases even more heat which can give you severe burns. Objects absorb heat when they melt and evaporate/boil. Objects release heat when they freeze and condense.


Do you remember when I said that heat and temperature are two different things? Heat is energy – it is thermal energy. It can be transferred from one object to another by conduction, convection, and radiation. We’re now going to explore heat capacity and specific heat. Here’s what you do:


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Click here for your next lesson on Triple Point.

They can have a thermal energy but they can’t have heat. Heat is really the transfer of thermal energy. Or, in other words, the movement of thermal energy from one object to another.


If you put an ice cube in a glass of lemonade, the ice cube melts. Which way does heat flow?


The thermal energy from your lemonade moves to the ice cube.


The movement of thermal energy is called heat. The ice cube receives heat from your lemonade. Your lemonade gives heat to the ice cube.


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Read the temperature from the thermometer… what do you get? This thermometer is reading in Celsius.


We’ll cover thermometers and the four temperature scales in a bit when we get to thermochemistry, but I just wanted to make sure we’re all on the same page when it comes to reading a thermometer, especially now that so many are digital and some kids may have not yet had the experience of reading a temperature scale.


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First invented in the 1600s, thermometers measure temperature using a sensor (the bulb tip) and a scale. Temperature is a way of talking about, measuring, and comparing the thermal energy of objects. We use three different kinds of scales to measure temperature. Fahrenheit, Celsius, and Kelvin. (The fourth, Rankine, which is the absolute scale for Fahrenheit, is the one you’ll learn about in college.)


Mr. Fahrenheit, way back when (18th century) created a scale using a mercury thermometer to measure temperature. He marked 0° as the temperature ice melts in a tub of salt. (Ice melts at lower temperatures when it sits in salt. This is why we salt our driveways to get rid of ice). To standardize the higher point of his scale, he used the body temperature of his wife, 96°.


As you can tell, this wasn’t the most precise or useful measuring device. I can just imagine Mr. Fahrenheit, “Hmmm, something cold…something cold. I got it! Ice in salt. Good, okay there’s zero, excellent. Now, for something hot. Ummm, my wife! She always feels warm. Perfect, 96°. ” I hope he never tried to make a thermometer when she had a fever.


Just kidding, I’m sure he was very precise and careful, but it does seem kind of weird. Over time, the scale was made more precise and today body temperature is usually around 98.6°F.


Later, (still 18th century) Mr. Celsius came along and created his scale. He decided that he was going to use water as his standard. He chose the temperature that water freezes at as his 0° mark. He chose the temperature that water boils at as his 100° mark. From there, he put in 100 evenly spaced lines and a thermometer was born.


Last but not least Mr. Kelvin came along and wanted to create another scale. He said, I want my zero to be ZERO! So he chose absolute zero to be the zero on his scale.


Absolute zero is the theoretical temperature where molecules and atoms stop moving. They do not vibrate, jiggle or anything at absolute zero. In Celsius, absolute zero is -273 ° C. In Fahrenheit, absolute zero is -459°F (or 0°R). It doesn’t get colder than that!


As you can see, creating the temperature scales was really rather arbitrary:


“I think 0° is when water freezes with salt.”
“I think it’s just when water freezes.”
“Oh, yea, well I think it’s when atoms stop!”


Many of our measuring systems started rather arbitrarily and then, due to standardization over time, became the systems we use today. So that’s how temperature is measured, but what is temperature measuring?


Temperature is measuring thermal energy which is how fast the molecules in something are vibrating and moving. The higher the temperature something has, the faster the molecules are moving. Water at 34°F has molecules moving much more slowly than water at 150°F. Temperature is really a molecular speedometer.


Let’s make a quick thermometer so you can see how a thermometer actually works:


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This experiment is for advanced students. There are many different elements inside of a star. But they are so far away that we can’t get close enough to study them… or can we? By studying the special light signature (called “spectral lines”) astronomers can figure out not only which element, but also the approximate temperature and density of the element within the star, in addition to getting an idea of what the magnetic fields look like, which tells us about stellar wing and what the planets might be doing around the star, or if there might be another companion star.


Spectroscopy is a very complicated science, so let’s get started by actually doing it, and we’ll figure out what’s going on along the way.


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Click here for Homework Problem Set #6

You’re going to try to determine what is happening during the flame test when you see different colors. Think about what particles are found in the chemicals you’re using, and why the different chemicals emit different colors of light? Where else have you seen colorful light emissions?


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Click here to go to next lesson on Spectral Chemical Analysis Part 2.

Did you aim your razor slit at a light source such as a fluorescent light, neon sign, sunset, light bulb, computer screen, television, night light, candle, fireplace… ? Make sure that the diffraction grating does right up to your eye.  Move the spectrometer around until you can get the rainbow to be on the scale inside the tube.


Once you’ve got the hang of it, you might be wondering, wow – cool… but what am I looking at exactly? Ok – so those lines you saw inside the tube – those are spectral lines. Can you see how there are brighter lines? Which frequencies are those? Well we need a ruler to measure those. Can you see how if we lined up a ruler as could tell what the frequencies are?


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spectrometer2Spectrometers are used in chemistry and astronomy to measure light. In astronomy, we can find out about distant stars without ever traveling to them, because we can split the incoming light from the stars into their colors (or energies) and “read” what they are made up of (what gases they are burning) and thus determine their what they are made of. In this experiment, you’ll make a simple cardboard spectrometer that will be able to detect all kinds of interesting things!


SPECIAL NOTE: This instrument is NOT for looking at the sun. Do NOT look directly at the sun. But you can point the tube at a sheet of paper that has the sun’s reflected light on it.


Usually you need a specialized piece of material called a diffraction grating to make this instrument work, but instead of buying a fancy one, why not use one from around your house?  Diffraction gratings are found in insect (including butterfly) wings, bird feathers, and plant leaves.  While I don’t recommend using living things for this experiment, I do suggest using an old CD.


CDs are like a mirror with circular tracks that are very close together. The light is spread into a spectrum when it hits the tracks, and each color bends a little more than the last. To see the rainbow spectrum, you’ve got to adjust the CD and the position of your eye so the angles line up correctly (actually, the angles are perpendicular).


You’re looking for a spectrum (the rainbow image at left) – this is what you’ll see right on the CD itself. Depending on what you look at (neon signs, chandeliers, incandescent bulbs, fluorescent bulbs, Christmas lights…), you’ll see different colors of the rainbow. For more about how diffraction gratings work, click here.


Materials:


  • old CD
  • razor
  • index card
  • cardboard tube
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Glow sticks generate light with very little heat, just like the glow you see from fireflies, jellyfish, and a few species of fungi. Chemiluminescence means light that comes from a chemical reaction. When this happens in animals and plants, it’s called bioluminescence.


In a glow stick, when you bend it to activate it, you’re breaking a little glass tube inside which contains hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). The tube itself is filled with another chemical (phenyl oxalate ester and a fluorescent dye) that is kept separate from the H2O2, because as soon as they touch, they begin to react. The dye in the light stick is what gives the light its color.


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Which one of these things you see on the screen now is radioactive? Most kids think that anything that glows must be radioactive, but it turns out that there’s a lot of things that glow that aren’t radioactive at all. Many minerals (called phosphors) glow after being exposed to sunlight which contains UV light. In 1897, Henri Becquerel was studying phosphorescence when he accidentally discovered radioactivity. Naturally radioactive elements emit energy without absorbing it first. Let me explain…


Cold light refers to the light from a glow stick, called luminescence. A chemical reaction (chemiluminescence) starts between two liquids, and the energy is released in the form of light. On the atomic scale, the energy from the reaction bumps the electron to a higher shell, and when it relaxes back down it emits a photon of light. Glow sticks generate light with very little heat, just like the glow you see from fireflies, jellyfish, and a few species of fungi. Chemiluminescence means light that comes from a chemical reaction.
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Photoelectric EffectEinstein received a Nobel Prize for figuring out what happens when you shine blue light on a sheet of metal.  When he aimed a blue light on a metal plate, electrons shot off the surface. (Metals have electrons which are free to move around, which is why metals are electrically conductive. More on this in Unit 10).

When Einstein aimed a red light at the metal sheet, nothing happened.  Even when he cranked the intensity (brightness) of the red light, still nothing happened.  So it was the energy of the light (wavelength), not the number of photons (intensity) that made the electrons eject from the plate. This is called the ‘photoelectric effect’. Can you imagine what happens if we aim a UV light (which has even more energy than blue light) at the plate?

This photoelectric effect is used by all sorts of things today, including solar cells, electronic components, older types of television screens, video camera detectors, and night-vision goggles.

This photoelectric effect also causes the outer shell of orbiting spacecraft to develop an electric charge, which can wreck havoc on its internal computer systems.

A surprising find was back in the 1960s, when scientists discovered that moon dust levitated through the photoelectric effect. Sunlight hit the lunar dust, which became (slightly) electrically charged, and the dust would then lift up off the surface in thin, thread-like fountains of particles up ¾ of a mile high.

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These are the scientific concepts students learn, separated by grade level according to both the national standards for science and Aurora’s personal experience in working with kids for nearly two decades. The scientific concepts are organized into categories within each grade level. You’ll find some areas span more than one grade level, so you will see some experiments listed for multiple grade levels.

PRE-K & K

Material properties, introduction to forces and motion, plants and animals, and basic principles of earth science.

First Grade

States of matter, weather, sound energy, light waves, and experimenting with the scientific method.

Second Grade

Chemical reactions, polymers, rocks and minerals, genetic traits, plant and animal life cycles, and Earth's resources.

Third Grade

Newton's law of motion, celestial objects, telescopes, measure the climate of the Earth and discover the microscopic world of life.

Fourth Grade

Electricity and magnetism, circuits and robotics, rocks and minerals, and the many different forms of energy.

Fifth Grade

Chemical elements and molecules, animal and plant biological functions, heat transfer, weather, planetary and solar astronomy.

Sixth Grade

Heat transfer, convetion currents, ecosystems, meteorology, simple machines, and alternative energy.

Seventh Grade

Cells, genetics, DNA, kinetic and potential, thermal energy, light and lasers, and biological structures.

Eighth Grade

Acceleration, forces projectile motion chemical reactions, deep space astronomy, and the periodic table.

High School (Advanced)

Alternative energy, astrophysics, robotics, chemistry, electronics, physics and more. For high school & advanced 5-8th students.

Teaching Resources

Tips and tricks to getting the science education results you want most for your students.

Science Fair Projects

Hovercraft, Light Speed, Fruit Batteries, Crystal Radios, R.O.V Underwater Robots and more!


This is a recording of a recent live class I did with an entire high school astronomy class. I've included it here so you can participate and learn, too! Light is energy that can travel through space. How much energy light has determines what kind of wave it is. It can be visible light, x-ray, radio, microwave, gamma or ultraviolet. The electromagnetic spectrum shows the different energies of light and how the energy relates to different frequencies, and that's exactly what we're going to cover in class. We're going to talk about light, what it is, how it moves, and it's generated, and learn how astronomers study the differences in light to tell a star's atmosphere from  millions of miles away. I usually give this presentation at sunset during my live workshops, so I inserted slides along with my talk so you could see the pictures better. This video below is long, so I highly recommend doing this with friends and a big bowl of popcorn. Ready? Please login or register to read the rest of this content.

Click here to go to next lesson on Photons and Energy.


Energy can take one of two forms: matter and light (called electromagnetic radiation). Light is energy that can travel through space. When you feel the warmth of the sun on your arm, that’s energy from the sun that traveled through space as infrared radiation (heat). When you see a tree or a bird, that’s light from the sun that traveled as visible light (red, orange… the whole rainbow) reflecting and bouncing off objects to get to your eye. Light can travel through objects sometimes… like the glass in a window.


Light can take the form of either a wave or a particle, depending on what you’re doing with it. It’s like a reversible coat – fleece on the inside, windbreaker on the outside. It can adapt to whatever environment you put it in.
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Click here to go to next lesson on Atomic spectra of hydrogen and energy levels.

This experiment is for advanced students. Here is another way to detect cosmic rays, only this time you’ll actually see the thin, threadlike vapor trails appear and disappear. These cobwebby trails are left by the particles within minutes of creating the detector. (Be sure to complete the Cosmic Ray Detector first!)


In space, there are powerful explosions (supernovas) and rapidly-spinning neutron stars (pulsars), both of which spew out high energy particles that zoom near the speed of light. Tons of these particles zip through our atmosphere each day. There are three types of particles: alpha, beta, and gamma.


Did you know that your household smoke alarm emits alpha particles? There’s a small bit (around 1/5000th of a gram) of Americium-241, which emits an alpha particle onto a detector. As long as the detector sees the alpha particle, the smoke alarm stays quiet. However, since alpha particles are easy to block, when smoke gets in the way and blocks the alpha particles from reaching the detector, you hear the smoke alarm scream.


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Click here to go to next lesson on Properties of light and study of waves.


Naturally radioactive elements emit energy without absorbing it first. Fluorescence for example – the atom absorbs a photon before emitting another photon. You have to “charge it up” or mix chemicals together before light comes out. With radioactive materials, they emit energy on their own, sometimes in the form of light, but sometimes they emit other particles. Let me explain.


Chemical reactions usually deal with only electron or atom exchanges. Nuclear reactions deal with changes inside the nucleus of an atom.
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Click here to go to next lesson on Alpha Particle Detector.

The periodic table is more like a filing cabinet that tells you everything about the structure of the atom, its properties and how it behave in chemical reactions. With just a quick glance, you will soon be able to tell how the electrons are organized around the nucleus and also predict how the atom will interact with others.


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Click here to go to next lesson on Ionization Energy.

The number of electrons in the outermost shell tells you how reactive the atom is because it tells you how many it needs to feel full, or how many it can lose. Valence electrons are the highest energy and furthest out electrons. In general, elements are less reactive when their outermost shell is full.


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Click here to go to next lesson on Alkali Metals here.

Molecules are the building blocks of matter.


You’ve probably heard that before, right? But that does it mean? What does a molecule look like? How big are they?


While you technically can measure the size of a molecule, despite the fact it’s usually too small to do even with a regular microscope, what you can’t do is see an image of the molecule itself. The reason has to do with the limits of nature and wavelengths of light, not because our technology isn’t there yet, or we’re not smart enough to figure it out. Scientists have to get creative about the ways they do about measuring something that isn’t possible to see with the eyes.


Here’s a cool experiment you can do that will approximate the size of a molecule. Here’s what you need:


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Click here to go to next lesson on Valence electrons and Lewis dot structures.


One of the dreams of early chemists was to figure out how to transform lead into gold. Lead has 82 protons in its core whereas gold contains only 79. So conceivably all you’d need to do is remove three protons and presto! So how do you do that? Since protons can’t be stripped off with a chemical reaction, you need to smack it hard with something to knock off just the right amount. Lead, however, if a very stable element, so it’s going to require a lot of energy to remove three protons. How about a linear accelerator?


In a linear accelerator, a charged particle moves through a series of tubes that are charged by electrical and/or magnetic fields. The accelerated particle smacks the target, knocking free protons or neutrons and making a new element (or isotope). Glenn Seaborg (I actually met him!), 1951 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, actually succeeded in transmuting a tiny quantity of lead into gold in 1980. He actually discovered (or helped discover) 10 elements on the periodic table, 100 new isotopes, and while he was still living (which usually doesn’t happen), they named an element after him (Seaborgium – 106).


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Click here to go to next lesson on Measure a Molecule.


The Bohr model is useful when we want to tell how reactive an element is, but it doesn’t really work to explain how the electrons are organized around the nucleus. The quantum model is the one used today by scientists.


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Click here to go to next lesson on Electron configuration.

Atoms are held together by bonds, and bonds take energy, so an atom that is bonded has less energy than if it was free floating around on its own. Energy is required to break a bond (bond energy). Energy is released when a bond is created. (We’ll use this idea again later when we talk about Lewis Dot structures.) Each molecule has its own bond energy which you can look up in a table in your chemistry book. For example, C-H bonds take about 100kcal of energy to break 1 mol of C-H bonds, so you’ll find bond energies listed in kcal per mol. If you look up C-C bonds, you’ll find 80 kcal/mol. And a double C-C bond is 145 kcal per mol.

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Click here for Homework Problem Set #5


A combustion reaction gives off energy, usually in the form of heat and light.  The reaction itself includes oxygen combining with another compound to form water, carbon dioxide, and other products.


A campfire is an example of wood and oxygen combining to create ash, smoke, and other gases. Here’s the reaction for the burning of methane (CH4) which gives carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O):


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Click here to go to next lesson on Bond energies.


This experiment is for advanced students.


Zinc (Zn), is a metal and it is found as element #30 on the periodic table. We need a little zinc to keep our bodies balanced, but too much is very dangerous.


Zinc is just like the common, everyday substance that we all know as di-hydrogen monoxide (which is the chemical name for water). We need water to survive, but too much will kill us.


DHMO: In chemistry, “Di” equals the number 2; hydrogen is H; mono equals the number one; and oxide is derived from oxygen, and its symbol is O. Put these together and you have Di-hydrogen (H2), and mono oxygen (O). Put them together, what do you have? Water!


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What state of matter is fire? Is it a liquid? I get that question a LOT, so let me clarify. The ancient scientists (Greek, Chinese… you name it) thought fire was a fundamental element. Earth, Air Water, and Fire (sometimes Space was added, and the Chinese actually omitted Air and substituted Wood and Metal instead) were thought to be the basic building blocks of everything, and named it an element. And it’s not a bad start, especially if you don’t have a microscope or access to the internet.


Today’s definition of an element comes from peeking inside the nucleus of an atom and counting up the protons. In a flame, there are lots of different molecules from NO, NO2, NO3, CO, CO2, O2, C… to name a few. So fire can’t be an element, because it’s made up of other elements. So, what is it?


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Click here to go to next lesson on Detonating Bubbles.


A combustion reaction gives off energy, usually in the form of heat and light.  The reaction itself includes oxygen combining with another compound to form water, carbon dioxide, and other products.


A campfire is an example of wood and oxygen combining to create ash, smoke, and other gases. Here’s the reaction for the burning of methane (CH4) which gives carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O):
CH4 + 2 O2  CO2 + 2 H2O
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Click here to go to next lesson on What is Fire?

First Law of Thermodynamics: Energy is conserved. Energy is the ability to do work. Work is moving something against a force over a distance. Force is a push or a pull, like pulling a wagon or pushing a car. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, but can be transformed.


Materials: ball, string


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By knowing the value of the bond energy, we can predict if a chemical reaction will be exothermic or endothermic. If the bonds in the products are stronger than the bonds in the reactants, then the products are more stable and the reaction will give off heat (exothermic).


Exothermic chemical reactions release energy as heat, light, electrical or sound (or all four). Usually when someone says it’s an exothermic reaction, they usually just mean energy is being released as heat.


Some release heat gradually (for example, a disposable hand-warmer), while others are more explosive (like burning magnesium). The energy comes from breaking the bonds within the chemical reaction.


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Dissolving calcium chloride is highly exothermic, meaning that it gives off a lot of heat when mixed with water (the water can reach up to 140oF, so watch your hands!). The energy released comes from the bond energy of the calcium chloride atoms, and is actually electromagnetic energy.


When you combine the calcium chloride and sodium carbonate solutions, you form the new chemicals sodium chloride (table salt) and calcium carbonate. Both of these new chemicals are solids and “fall out” of the solution, or precipitate. If you find that there is still liquid in the final solution, you didn’t have quite a saturation solution of one (or both) initial solutions.


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Click here to go to next lesson on endo/exo reactions.

This experiment is for advanced students. Did you know that eating a single peanut will power your brain for 30 minutes? The energy in a peanut also produces a large amount of energy when burned in a flame, which can be used to boil water and measure energy.


Peanuts are part of the bean family, and actually grows underground (not from trees like almonds or walnuts).  In addition to your lunchtime sandwich, peanuts are also used in woman’s cosmetics, certain plastics, paint dyes, and also when making nitroglycerin.


What makes up a peanut?  Inside you’ll find a lot of fats (most of them unsaturated) and  antioxidants (as much as found in berries).  And more than half of all the peanuts Americans eat are produced in Alabama. We’re going to learn how to release the energy inside a peanut and how to measure it.


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Click here to go to next lesson on Endothermic and exothermic reactions.

This experiment is for advanced students. Did you know that eating a single peanut will power your brain for 30 minutes? The energy in a peanut also produces a large amount of energy when burned in a flame, which can be used to boil water and measure energy.


Peanuts are part of the bean family, and actually grows underground (not from trees like almonds or walnuts).  In addition to your lunchtime sandwich, peanuts are also used in woman’s cosmetics, certain plastics, paint dyes, and also when making nitroglycerin.


What makes up a peanut?  Inside you’ll find a lot of fats (most of them unsaturated) and  antioxidants (as much as found in berries).  And more than half of all the peanuts Americans eat are produced in Alabama. We’re going to learn how to release the energy inside a peanut and how to measure it.


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Click here to go to next lesson on Law of conservation of energy, work, and internal energy.


Do you remember when I said that heat and temperature are two different things? Heat is energy – it is thermal energy. It can be transferred from one object to another.


Here’s what you do:


  • Find your balloon.
  • Put the balloon under the faucet and fill the balloon with a couple of tablespoons of water. Not too much!
  • Now blow up the balloon and tie it, leaving the water in the balloon.
  • You should have an inflated balloon with a tablespoon or two of water at the bottom of it.
  • Have your adult helper carefully light the candle. Don’t do this next to your computer… do it in the sink.
  • Hold the balloon over the candle carefully for a couple of seconds.
  • Did it pop?
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Click here to go to next lesson on Fire Balloon.

If you’ve ever had a shot, you know how cold your arm feels when the nurse swipes it with a pad of alcohol. What happened there? Well, alcohol is a liquid with a fairly low boiling point. In other words, it goes from liquid to gas at a fairly low temperature. The heat from your body is more then enough to make the alcohol evaporate.


As the alcohol went from liquid to gas it sucked heat out of your body. For things to evaporate, they must suck in heat from their surroundings to change state. As the alcohol evaporated you felt cold where the alcohol was. This is because the alcohol was sucking the heat energy out of that part of your body (heat was being transferred by conduction) and causing that part of your body to decrease in temperature.


As things condense (go from gas to liquid state) the opposite happens. Things release heat as they change to a liquid state. The water gas that condenses on your mirror actually increases the temperature of that mirror. This is why steam can be quite dangerous. Not only is it hot to begin with, but if it condenses on your skin it releases even more heat which can give you severe burns. Objects absorb heat when they melt and evaporate/boil. Objects release heat when they freeze and condense.


Do you remember when I said that heat and temperature are two different things? Heat is energy – it is thermal energy. It can be transferred from one object to another by conduction, convection, and radiation. We’re now going to explore heat capacity and specific heat. Here’s what you do:


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Click here to go to next lesson on Energy from a peanut.


Is it hot where you live in the summer? What if I gave you a recipe for making ice cream that doesn’t require an expensive ice cream maker, hours of churning, and can be made to any flavor you can dream up? (Even dairy-free if needed?)


If you’ve got a backyard full of busy kids that seem to constantly be in motion, then this is the project for you.  The best part is, you don’t have to do any of the churning work… the kids will handle it all for you!


This experiment is simple to set up (it only requires a trip to the grocery store), quick to implement, and all you need to do guard the back door armed with a hose to douse the kids before they tramp back into the house afterward.


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Click here to go to next lesson on Heat Capacity and Specific Heat.


You can think of enthalpy as the total potential energy of a system given by this equation:


ΔΔΔ(pV)  (U = internal energy, p = pressure, V = volume)


Since for most experiments, pressure is constant, that equation becomes:


ΔΔ+ pΔV


The heat transfer of a system is given by and it can be positive or negative. A hot cup of coffee on a cold morning is warmer than its environment, so heat will flow from the coffee to the cooler surrounding air, since heat always flows from hot to cold, so q is negative. If you have ice-cold lemonade on a hot day, heat flows from the environment to the lemonade, so is positive. The mathematical equation for heat is:


Δ− (W = work)


When you combine the equations to find the relationship between heat and enthalpy, you find that:


Δ= q  when pressure is constant. Now let’s learn how to use this equation in chemistry to find the energy in a chemical reaction.


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Thermal energy is how much the molecules are moving inside an object. The faster molecules move, the more thermal energy it has.


Objects whose molecules are moving very quickly are said to have high thermal energy or high temperature. Like a cloud of steam, for example. The higher the temperature, the faster the molecules are moving.
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Click here to go to next lesson on Make ice cream.

First invented in the 1600s, thermometers measure temperature using a sensor (the bulb tip) and a scale. Temperature is a way of talking about, measuring, and comparing the thermal energy of objects. We use three different kinds of scales to measure temperature. Fahrenheit, Celsius, and Kelvin. (The fourth, Rankine, which is the absolute scale for Fahrenheit, is the one you’ll learn about in college.)


Mr. Fahrenheit, way back when (18th century) created a scale using a mercury thermometer to measure temperature. He marked 0° as the temperature ice melts in a tub of salt. (Ice melts at lower temperatures when it sits in salt. This is why we salt our driveways to get rid of ice). To standardize the higher point of his scale, he used the body temperature of his wife, 96°.


As you can tell, this wasn’t the most precise or useful measuring device. I can just imagine Mr. Fahrenheit, “Hmmm, something cold…something cold. I got it! Ice in salt. Good, okay there’s zero, excellent. Now, for something hot. Ummm, my wife! She always feels warm. Perfect, 96°. ” I hope he never tried to make a thermometer when she had a fever.


Just kidding, I’m sure he was very precise and careful, but it does seem kind of weird. Over time, the scale was made more precise and today body temperature is usually around 98.6°F.


Later, (still 18th century) Mr. Celsius came along and created his scale. He decided that he was going to use water as his standard. He chose the temperature that water freezes at as his 0° mark. He chose the temperature that water boils at as his 100° mark. From there, he put in 100 evenly spaced lines and a thermometer was born.


Last but not least Mr. Kelvin came along and wanted to create another scale. He said, I want my zero to be ZERO! So he chose absolute zero to be the zero on his scale.


Absolute zero is the theoretical temperature where molecules and atoms stop moving. They do not vibrate, jiggle or anything at absolute zero. In Celsius, absolute zero is -273 ° C. In Fahrenheit, absolute zero is -459°F (or 0°R). It doesn’t get colder than that!


As you can see, creating the temperature scales was really rather arbitrary:


“I think 0° is when water freezes with salt.”
“I think it’s just when water freezes.”
“Oh, yea, well I think it’s when atoms stop!”


Many of our measuring systems started rather arbitrarily and then, due to standardization over time, became the systems we use today. So that’s how temperature is measured, but what is temperature measuring?


Temperature is measuring thermal energy which is how fast the molecules in something are vibrating and moving. The higher the temperature something has, the faster the molecules are moving. Water at 34°F has molecules moving much more slowly than water at 150°F. Temperature is really a molecular speedometer.


Let’s make a quick thermometer so you can see how a thermometer actually works:


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Click here to go to next lesson on Thermal Energy.

Energy is the capacity to do work or to transfer heat. You do work when you walk up a flight of stairs. You can feel the heat from the sun when you step in the sunlight. Both are energy.


Heat is associated with changing the temperature of an object. The temperature changes because energy is being transferred to it. Another word for heat is thermal energy.


Thermochemistry is the science of heat or thermal energy transfer and how to use it with chemical reactions.
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Click here to go to next lesson on Thermometer Here.

What do you do if you don’t know the concentration of a solution? We use a method called titration to determine how many moles are present in the solution of an acid or a base by neutralizing it. A titration curve is when you graph out the pH as you drop it in the solution.


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Now let’s take a look at the forces between the molecules themselves. There are four main interactions which really come down to different ways of having opposite charges attract each other.


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The periodic table is more like a filing cabinet that tells you everything about the structure of the atom, its properties and how it behave in chemical reactions. With just a quick glance, you will soon be able to tell how the electrons are organized around the nucleus and also predict how the atom will interact with others.


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Ionization energy is the energy needed to remove electrons from an atom.


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The Bohr model is useful when we want to tell how reactive an element is, but it doesn’t really work to explain how the electrons are organized around the nucleus. The quantum model is the one used today by scientists.


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Light is energy that can travel through space. How much energy light has determines what kind of wave it is – visible, x-ray, radio, microwave… . The electromagnetic spectrum shows the different energies of light and how the energy relates to different frequencies.

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Click here to go to next lesson on Photoelectric Effect.


The number of electrons in the outermost shell tells you how reactive the atom is because it tells you how many it needs to feel full, or how many it can lose. Valence electrons are the highest energy and furthest out electrons. In general, elements are less reactive when their outermost shell is full.


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An average can of soda at room temperature measures 55 psi before you ever crack it open. (In comparison, most car tires run on 35 psi, so that gives you an idea how much pressure there is inside the can!)


If you heat a can of soda, you’ll run the pressure over 80 psi before the can ruptures, soaking the interior of your house with its sugary contents. Still, you will have learned something worthwhile: adding energy (heat) to a system (can of soda) causes a pressure increase. It also causes a volume increase (kaboom!).
How about trying a safer variation of this experiment using water, an open can, and implosion instead of explosion?


Materials – An empty soda can, water, a pan, a bowl, tongs, and a grown-up assistant.


NOTE: If you can get a hold of one, use a beer can – they tend to work better for this experiment. But you can also do this with a regular old soda can. And no, I am not suggesting that kids should be drinking alcohol! Go ask a parent to find you one – and check the recycling bin.


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Click here for Homework Problem Set #4


This experiment is for advanced students.


This time we’re going to use a lot of equipment… really break out all the chemistry stuff. We’ll need all this stuff to generate oxygen with potassium permanganate (KMNO4). We will work with this toxic chemical and we will be careful…won’t we?


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Click here to go to next lesson on condensing steam.


Rockets shoot skyward with massive amounts of thrust, produced by chemical reaction or air pressure. Scientists create the thrust force by shoving a lot of gas (either air itself, or the gas left over from the combustion of a propellant) out small exit nozzles.


According to the universal laws of motion, for every action, there is equal and opposite reaction. If flames shoot out of the rocket downwards, the rocket itself will soar upwards. It’s the same thing if you blow up a balloon and let it go—the air inside the balloon goes to the left, and the balloon zips off to the right (at least, initially, until the balloon neck turns into a thrust-vectored nozzle, but don’t be concerned about that just now).


A rocket has a few parts different from an airplane. One of the main differences is the absence of wings. Rockets utilize fins, which help steer the rocket, while airplanes use wings to generate lift. Rocket fins are more like the rudder of an airplane than the wings.


Another difference is the how rockets get their speed. Airplanes generate thrust from a rotating blade, whereas rockets get their movement by squeezing down a high-energy gaseous flow and squeezing it out a tiny exit hole.


If you’ve ever used a garden hose, you already know how to make the water stream out faster by placing your thumb over the end of the hose. You’re decreasing the amount of area the water has to exit the hose, but there’s still the same amount of water flowing out, so the water compensates by increasing its velocity. This is the secret to converging rocket nozzles—squeeze the flow down and out a small exit hole to increase velocity.


There comes a point, however, when you can’t get any more speed out of the gas, no matter how much you squeeze it down. This is called “choking” the flow. When you get to this point, the gas is traveling at the speed of sound (around 700 mph, or Mach 1). Scientists found that if they gradually un-squeeze the flow in this choked state, the flow speed actually continues to increase. This is how we get rockets to move at supersonic speeds or above Mach 1.


f18The image shown here is a real picture of an aircraft as it breaks the sound barrier. This aircraft is passing the speed at which sounds travel. The white cloud you see in the photo is related to the shock waves that are forming around the craft as it moves into supersonic speeds. Because the aircraft is moving through air, which is a gas, the gas can compress and results in a shock wave.


You can think of a shock wave as big pressure front. In this photo, the pressure is condensing water vapor in the air, hence the cloud. There are lots of things on earth that break the sound barrier – bullets and bullwhips, for example. The loud crack from a whip is the tip zipping faster than the speed of sound.


The rockets we’re about to build get their thrust by generating enough pressure and releasing that pressure very quickly. You will generate pressure both by pumping and by chemical reaction, which generates gaseous products. Let’s get started!


For this experiment, you will need:


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Click here to go to next lesson on generating oxygen.

If you soak chicken bones in acetic acid (distilled vinegar), you’ll get rubbery bones that are soft and pliable as the vinegar reacts with the calcium in the bones. This happens with older folks when they lose more calcium than they can replace in their bones, and the bones become brittle and easier to break. Scientists have discovered calcium is replaced more quickly in bodies that exercise and eating calcium rich foods, like green vegetables.


This is actually two experiments in one – here’s what you need to do:


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Click here to go to next lesson on Pop Rockets.


Gas forming reactions are also exchange reactions. The best example I can think of for this type of reaction is what happens when you put a piece of chalk in a cup of vinegar. The chalk, which is mostly CaCO3 (calcium carbonate) and vinegar (acetic acid) forms calcium chloride and carbonic acid, which isn’t stable and quickly turns into water and carbon dioxide. A faster version of this experiment is what happens when you take an effervescent tablet, like alka seltzer, and stick it in water, because the tablet is actually a solid form of baking soda and vinegar put together. What happens when you mix baking soda and vinegar together?


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Click here to go to next lesson on Rubber Eggs.

The kinetic theory of gases assumes that all gases behave ideally, but we know that’s not really what happens in the real world. For example, real gas particles do occupy space and also attract each other, although these properties are more apparent at lower temperature because usually the particles have enough kinetic energy to zip by each other without worrying about the attractive or repulsive charges from other molecules. If the molecules move slow enough though, they do get affected by the push or pull of other molecules.


Also at high pressures, the molecules are so tightly packed together that they do start to have volume considerations that need to be addressed. So for a real gas, we can make calculations like this:


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Click here to go to next lesson on Gas Forming Reactions.

If you’ve ever owned a fish tank, you know that you need a filter with a pump. Other than cleaning out the fish poop, why else do you need a filter? (Hint: think about a glass of water next to your bed. Does it taste different the next day?)


There are tiny air bubbles trapped inside the water, and you can see this when you boil a pot of water on the stove. The experimental setup shown in the video illustrates how a completely sealed tube of water can be heated… and then bubbles come out one end BEFORE the water reaches a boiling point. The tiny bubbles smoosh together to form a larger bubble, showing you that air is dissolved in the water.


Materials:


  • test tube clamp
  • test tube
  • lighter (with adult help)
  • alcohol burner or votive candle
  • right-angle glass tube inserted into a single-hole stopper
  • regular tap water
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Click here to go to next lesson on Real Gases And Deviation From Ideal Gas Law.


We’re going to do an experiment where it will look like we can boil soda on command… but the truth is, it’s not really boiling in the first place! If you drink soda, save one for doing this experiment. Otherwise, get one that’s “diet” (without the sugar, it’s a lot easier to clean up).


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Click here to go to next lesson on Can Fish Drown?.

The kinetic theory of gases relates what’s going on with the motion of the tiny invisible molecules with the properties you can measure, like temperature and pressure. Kinetic means the study of motion, and for us, it’s the motion of the gas molecules.


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Click here to go to next lesson on Temperature Effects On Gas Solubility.

The “mean free path” is the average distance a gas molecule travels between collisions. If a molecule has a diameter “d”, then the effective cross section for a collision is “π d2“. This is used mostly with the Kinetic Theory of Gases, and is a good estimation of how particles move in a gas.
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Click here to go to next lesson on Kinetic Molecular Theory.


Graham’s law tells is how gases move through porous materials, like air in a balloon. Ever noticed how balloons don’t stay inflated forever? That’s because the gas diffuses through the balloon skin itself. And if you take a good look, helium balloons deflate the next day, whereas normal air balloons will keep for a few days. Small helium molecules effuse through the tiny holes in the balloon skin much faster than normal air does.
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Avogadro’s Law states that 1 mole of every gas occupies the same volume at the same temperature and pressure. The mass of the gas might be different… one mole of helium is going to weigh less than one mole of nitrogen, for example, but the number of helium gas molecules is exactly the same as the number of nitrogen molecules, and both of them will occupy the same amount of space (22.4L) at standard temperature and pressure. At room temperature and pressure, it’s slightly higher (24 L).
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Click here to go to next lesson on Graham’s Law.

Okay, so now I want you to imagine a room full of ping pong balls that can bounce all by themselves. They go zipping all over the place all on their own. Now take those ping pong balls and add energy to them so now they bounce twice as fast. Got it?


Now what happens if we take away energy from them? Do they bounce slower? Yup!


Okay, now get them back to their original bouncing speed. Now take the room and make it smaller, like half it’s size, but keep the ping pong ball speed the same. Do they hit the walls more or less frequently? More! Are they speeding up or slowing down? Speeding up!


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Click here to go to next lesson on Overview of the Ideal Gas Law.

Pure substances all behave about the same when they are gases. The Ideal Gas Law relates temperature, pressure, and volume of these gases in one simple statement: PV = nRT where P = pressure, V = volume, T = temperature, n = number of moles, and R is a constant.


When temperature increases, pressure and volume increase. Temperature is basically a speedometer for molecules. The faster they are wiggling and jiggling, the higher the temperature and the higher the thermal energy that object has. Pressure is how many pushes a surface feels from the motion of the molecules.


Materials: balloon, freezer, tape measure (optional)


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Click here to go to next lesson on Molar volume of gases and Avogadro’s Law.


This project is for advanced students.This Stirling Engine project is a very advanced project that requires skill, patience, and troubleshooting persistence in order to work right. Find yourself a seasoned Do-It-Yourself type of adult (someone who loves to fix things or tinker in the garage) before you start working on this project, or you’ll go crazy with nit-picky things that will keep the engine from operating correctly. This makes an excellent project for a weekend.


Developed in 1810s, this engine was widely used because it was quiet and could use almost anything as a heat source. This kind of heat engine squishes and expands air to do mechanical work. There’s a heat source (the candle) that adds energy to your system, and the result is your shaft spins (CD).


This engine converts the expansion and compression of gases into something that moves (the piston) and rotates (the crankshaft). Your car engine uses internal combustion to generate the expansion and compression cycles, whereas this heat engine has an external heat source.


This experiment is great for chemistry students learning about Charles’s Law, which is also known as the Law of Volumes, which describes how gases tend to expand when they are heated and can be mathematically written like this:



where V = volume, and T = temperature. So as temperature increases, volume also increases. In the experiment you’re about to do, you will see how heating the air causes the diaphragm to expand which turns the crank.


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Click here to go to next lesson on Ideal Gas Law.

The triple point is where a molecule can be in all three states of matter at the exact same time, all in equilibrium. Imagine having a glass of liquid water happily together with both ice cubes and steam bubbles inside, forever! The ice would never melt, the liquid water would remain the same temperature, and the steam would bubble up. In order to do this, you have to get the pressure and temperature just right, and it’s different for every molecule.


The triple point of mercury happens at -38oF and 0.000000029 psi. For carbon dioxide, it’s 75psi and -70oF. So this isn’t something you can do with a modified bike pump and a refrigerator.


However, the triple point of water is 32oF and 0.089psi. The only place we’ve found this happening naturally (without any lab equipment) is on the surface of Mars.


Because of these numbers, we can get water to boil here on Earth while it stays at room temperature by changing the pressure using everyday materials. (If you have a vacuum pump, you can have the water boil at the freezing point of 32oF.)


Here’s what you need to do:


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Click here to go to next lesson on Charles Law.

Here are the most important things about gases to remember:


  • Gases assume the shape and volume of their container.
  • Gases have lower densities than their solid or liquid phases.
  • Gases are more easily compressed than their solid or liquid phases.
  • Gases will mix completely and evenly when confined to the same volume.
  • All elements in Group VIII are gases. These gases are known as the noble gases.
  • Elements that are gases at room temperature and normal pressure are all nonmetals.
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Click here to go to next lesson on Boyle’s Law.

A reagent is chemical compound that creates a reaction in another substance; the product of that chemical reaction is an indicator of the presence, absence, or concentration of another substance.
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Click here for Homework Problem Set #1