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We love these cannons as they are simple to make, very low cost (as long as you like eating the crisps!) and great fun. There are lots of possibilities for trying out different ideas with them. Whether this is to hit the Working Scientifically aspects of the National Curriculum or just to allow children to explore, experiment and be scientists!

What you need

  • A Pringles tube (or similar)
  • Large elastic bands
  • Blunt pencil
  • Plastic bottle that fits inside the Pringles tube
  • Projectiles: cotton wool balls, ping pong balls, screwed up paper
  • Scissors
  • Sharp knife (grown up use only)

How to make your cannon

Cut the bottom off a Pringles tube (this is a grown up job!) and cut four slits in the other end. Use the slits to attach a couple of elastic bands. Push the (blunt) pencil through the plastic bottle (may need a grown up to make holes in the bottle) and the elastic bands can loop over the pencil.

How to test your cannon

Pull the bottle down and let go to fire projectiles such as screwed up paper balls, ping pong balls, cotton wool, pom poms etc. How far can you fire it? Can you hit a target? Can you knock down some plastic cups?

Ideas for use in school or home education

Get the children to bring in the tubes and plastic bottles and you only need some elastic bands. This makes it minimal on resources…you just need to plan in advance to you can collect the tubes!

Use sticky note planning in class to come up with ideas for variables. Many can be done with no further resources: change the projectile, number of elastic bands, twists in the bands, angle of launch, pull-back distance…and every time I do this the children think of ideas that I haven’t thought of! The dependent variable can also be chosen from distance flown, height reached, force (ie, can it knock down cups) or even accuracy (can you get it in a cup). This could be used as part of the forces topic in Y3 or Y5, or as a standalone STEM project any time.


If you would like to boost the science curriculum in your school, we can bring a whole day of Fantastic Forces activities to every year group from EYFS to Year 6. Rockets, experiments, explosions and hands on learning. Check out our schools page or email us for details.


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You don’t need to visit a science centre or have your own lab to do lots of experimenting at home. You don’t need any fancy equipment, just use things that you have around the home. Here are our top tips for your home science kit…

See what you already have

Now is the time to do an inventory of random Christmas presents that got stuck in the back of a cupboard. Do you have any science kits gathering dust? Do you have any that have been ‘done’ but still have kit that could be used again? Is there a microscope or telescope just itching to be used? Many other toys can be useful for STEM projects: toy cars, construction toys (Lego, K’Nex, Magnetix etc), anything with magnets, marble runs, playdough, craft kits…let me know if you think of any more!

Stop recycling!

Every primary school has a stash of ‘junk’ for crafts and STEM projects. If we’re doing STEM at home, it’s probably the first thing that we need to build up! Kitchen roll tubes, egg boxes, plastic bottles, yoghurt pots, jars, cardboard, packing materials (bubble wrap, pellets etc), cereal boxes, margarine tubs…in fact almost anything as long as its clean and doesn’t have any sharp edges. This is not just for primary kids! Teenagers and even adults love to build things if they have enough time. Time is something that we are usually so short of but now have in abundance, let’s use it! Set a family ‘junk box challenge’ and see where it takes you. You are allowed to recycle it afterwards though…if the kids will let you!

Some useful things to start gathering together

  • Goggles – any type. From a science kit, DIY ones, swimming goggles, snorkelling mask, Nerf goggles…if they stop things splashing into your eyes, they’re all good.
  • Containers – you don’t need test tubes or special equipment; plastic cups, yoghurt pots and old beakers are perfect.
  • Old spoons – big ones and little ones.
  • A tray to catch spillages and something to protect the table if doing chemistry indoors.
  • Elastic bands, scissors, clips, string, sticky tape, glue, Blu Tack, balloons, marbles, zip lock bags.
  • Vinegar and baking soda.
  • Scrap paper and assorted junk.
  • Funnels – you can make your own by cutting the top off a plastic bottle (and use the bottom half as a beaker). Just make sure there are no sharp edges.

Our favourite science buys

There is so much you can do with just what you have around your home. However, if you plan to buy any kit or resources to support your child’s science learning, you can find our top picks here.

Virtuali-tee by Curiscope

Whizz Pop Bang - our favourite magazineNatural History Museum pocket microscope

 

 

 

 

 

Follow us on Facebook for regular updates and ideas for home science or join our Facebook group to share your own! You can find lots of ideas on our home school support page.


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Being outdoors is always fun but there is also plenty of learning to be done! Look closely and you can find a whole lot of nature in your own garden, the park or out in the countryside. Here are some links to activities and spotter sheets to help.

Egg box scavenger hunt

Set your child a challenge to find the most interesting things that they can while outside…but they’re only allowed six things. Take an egg box along, they can fill the sections with anything they like as long as it’s interesting! If they fill it and find something else, they have to choose one thing to lose. Trickier than it sounds. They can tell you about their finds and why they chose them. For older children, you may want to challenge them to make links between the items. There can be some quite tenuous links but it’s good fun and gets them thinking!

Going on a bug hunt

There is a whole world of mini-beasts to be found in the garden or the woods. Try turning over a few stones or logs and see what you can find. You might find a magnifying glass is useful if you have one. You can use an empty tub to collect bugs to look at, make sure you use a brush or feather to gently push them into the container so that you don’t harm them. You should return them back to where you found them afterwards. If you’re feeling like a bit of DIY you could even make a pooter, which is like a mini vacuum cleaner to gently suck up tiny creatures so that you can have a good luck. You can find instructions to make a pooter on Discover Wildlife.

The Woodland Trust

This is a fantastic charity which aims to protect our woodland and educate children (and grown-ups!) on the importance of trees. They have published a blog specifically for activities to do in the garden if you are self isolating. Check out their top ten here. They have a huge range of spotter sheets and activities for schools on www.treetoolsforschools.org.uk and they have made them all available for free to anyone who needs them while home schooling.

Garden conservation activities from the RSPB

The RSPB has all sorts of activities on their website. From cafes for hedgehogs to hotels for bugs, even the smallest garden or balcony has room for a bee B&B!

 

We would love to see your learning adventures! You can share on the Fab Science Facebook group.


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Have you ever tried to inflate a balloon using magic (and chemistry)? This experiment uses the reaction between an acid (vinegar) and an carbonate (baking soda) to produce lots of fizzy carbon dioxide gas.

What you need:

An empty plastic bottle, 500ml or smaller.

Vinegar (any type)

Baking soda

A balloon

Spoon

Funnel (or roll a piece of paper into a cone)

Safety goggles

What to do:

  1.  Put your goggles on. This activity is safe but vinegar can squirt out if there’s a small hole in the balloon!
  2.  Carefully pour about 100 ml of vinegar into the bottle.
  3.  Use the funnel (or rolled up paper cone) to put a couple of teaspoons of baking soda into the balloon.
  4.  Stretch the balloon over the top of the bottle without letting the powder drop in.
  5.  When you’re ready, tip the balloon so that the powder falls into the bottle…it should inflate by itself!

If you want to impress your friends or family, you could say a ‘magic’ spell when you tip it and prove that you should be off to Hogwarts!

So what’s going on?

The vinegar is an acid and the baking soda is an alkali, these are opposite types of chemical and they will react together. Because the baking soda is a special kind of alkali called a carbonate, the reaction makes lots of carbon dioxide gas. This is the same gas that we make in our bodies when we release energy from our food (and then we breathe it out).

Think like a scientist:

This activity is a demonstration. To make it into an experiment, you could try changing the type of acid…you could use lemon juice, orange juice or a different type of vinegar. Or you could try adding a different amount of baking soda, use different shapes of balloons or different sized bottles. Remember, science is all about asking questions and working out a way to find out the answer!

You can find out more about acids and alkalis with our Colour changing cabbage experiment and if you like reactions with vinegar and baking soda, check out volcanoes.

If you would like to try out lots more experiments with your very own Fab Scientist, we can bring the Fab Science lab to your birthday party, school or event. Get in touch to find out more.

 

 

 


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Make your own bottle rockets!

All you need is: a piece of plastic plumbing tube (very cheap in any DIY store), a short piece of hose-pipe, an empty lemonade bottle, some paper, glue and Sellotape.

To make the rocket: roll a piece of A4 paper around the plastic tube. Use glue to keep the paper rolled up but do not stick it to the plastic tube! Push the paper over the end of the plastic tube so that you can fold the end over and stick it down with plenty of Sellotape. Take it off the plastic tube and that’s your rocket done…it’s that simple! You can decorate it if you like.

To make the rocket launcher: attach the hose to the neck of the bottle, again use plenty of tape to make sure no air can escape around the sides of the hose. Stick the plastic tube on the other end of the hose and make sure it is well sealed too. Your rocket launcher is ready to go.

To launch the rocket: Find an outside space that has plenty of room for a safe launch. Make sure the rocket can’t hit anyone or end up in a road. Slide the paper rocket onto the plastic tube. If you STOMP on the bottle, the air inside will be squashed and will rush through the tube under high pressure. This will make the rocket fly up in the air. You may want to get someone else to hold the tube so that you can get a really big stomp!



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All living things* have DNA; animals, plants, fungi, even teeny tiny bacteria. It’s what makes us who we are. At ‘All About Me’ camps, we made models of DNA and also had a look at some real DNA that we extracted from strawberries. There were lots of requests for instructions on how to do this at home so here is the recipe!

You need:

  • Two strawberries
  • Surgical spirit (available in any chemist)
  • Washing up liquid
  • Table salt
  • Ziplock bag (use pestle and mortar to avoid using plastic bag)
  • Plastic cups or beakers
  • Small glass (shot glass would be ideal)
  • Small sieve or tea strainer
  • Tweezers or cocktail sticks

 

What to do:

  1. Put the surgical spirit in the freezer at least an hour before you start. Leave it there until step 8.
  2. Remove the leaves from the strawberries and put the fruits in the bag.
  3. Mash the strawberries! This is the fun bit…don’t break the bag though. You can squash the strawberries in a pestle and mortar (or bowl and spoon!) instead to avoid plastic waste.
  4. To make the extraction mixture which will break open the cells and let the DNA escape: measure 90ml water into a beaker or cup, add a teaspoon of salt and two teaspoons of washing up liquid. Stir slowly…we want it mixed but not bubbly.
  5. Add 4 teaspoons of the extraction mixture to your bag of mashed up strawberries. Mix GENTLY.
  6. Sieve the strawberries into a clean beaker.
  7. Pour this into your small glass. The DNA is now free in the mixture instead of being stuck inside cells but it is VERY thin so we can’t see it.
  8. Carefully pour some cold surgical spirit on top of the strawberry liquid. You should see a cloudy white layer appear, this the DNA! The alcohol makes it clump together so you can see it. You can pull this out with tweezers or a cocktail stick to have a proper look.

 

*All cellular life on Earth has DNA. Some viruses have another molecule called RNA instead but it’s a bit of tricky question to decide if viruses are actually alive anyway. Of course, we don’t know if any lifeforms that may exist on other planets have DNA or something else entirely.


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Make your own Christmas gifts, with help from a little bit of science!

A chemical reaction that you can eat: honeycomb

All cooking is chemistry in action but my favourite edible experiment is honeycomb or cinder toffee. If you want to get all technical, this reaction is the thermal decomposition of sodium hydrogen carbonate to produce sodium carbonate, water and carbon dioxide gas. Basically, heat up baking soda and it gives off gas! If it is mixed up in some lovely gloopy melted sugar when this happens, you’ll get bubbly toffee which makes a great Christmas present for someone with a sweet tooth.

You will need: 200g caster sugar, 5tbsp golden syrup and 2tsp baking soda. Heat the sugar and syrup in a pan while stirring (this is definitely a grown up job!), when it is all melted and golden, remove from the heat and quickly stir in the baking soda. Watch as the chemical reaction happens and bubbles of carbon dioxide form in the toffee. Quickly pour onto a greased baking tray and wait for it to cool before testing out your tastebuds!

Fizzy bath bombs

These bath bombs don’t actually explode but they will fizz away when you put them in the bath. All the ingredients can be found in your kitchen/bathroom cabinet or can be bought in the supermarket (except citric acid which you can find in a chemist or homebrew section, I picked some up in Wilkos for 75p).

You will need:

Corn flour (2 tablespoons)

Citric acid (2 tablespoons)

Bicarbonate of soda (4 tablespoons)

Oil – coconut or olive are good (1 tablespoon)

Optional extras:

Food colouring

Fragranced oil/perfume (check it’s safe on skin)

A few dried flower petals (crushed)

 

What to do:

Mix the corn flour, citric acid and bicarbonate of soda together in a bowl (and flower petals if using). If you want to use fragrance and/or colouring add a few drops to the oil in a plastic cup. Then add the oil slowly to the dry ingredients, mixing in between. You may need add a bit more oil if it doesn’t form a paste (not too much though). When it’s nicely mixed, shape it into balls and leave them to dry on greaseproof paper. They’ll be fully dry in a couple of days then store them in an airtight tub. Pop the balls into cupcake cases and people will think that you have made lovely, thoughtful gifts, not just had fun with science!

 

What’s going on?

The bicarbonate of soda and citric acid will form a chemical reaction, making lots of carbon dioxide gas. This gas makes the fizzing and bubbles that you see when the bomb is dropped into water. The chemicals can’t react together when they are dry so the fun only starts in the bath!

 


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Eat your greens! No more sweets! Drink your milk! No fizzy drinks! Parents are always telling us what to eat but why? Investigate food packaging to find out which foods contain lots of sugar or plenty of good stuff like calcium and fibre. If you have access to the internet, you can experiment with making the healthiest and unhealthiest meals on the McDonalds nutrition calculator. Try out these investigations at home to see what happens if we don’t have enough calcium in our diet or eat too much sugar.

A trip to the dentist

Firstly, let’s look at what different drinks do to our teeth. If you can convince the tooth fairy to leave your teeth behind in the name of science, you can use real teeth. Otherwise, hard boiled eggs are a good substitute*. Pop each one in a plastic cup with a different drink; sugary cola, sugar-free cola, orange juice, fizzy water, tap water, anything you like. If you really want to see what acid does to your teeth, try putting one in vinegar! You might not think that you’d drink vinegar but bacteria in your mouth turn sugar to acid, so sugary things end up being acid in your mouth. This is why it is so important to brush your teeth! Leave the teeth or eggs in the drink for a week and then have a look for any changes.

Bendy bones

Want to see what happens to bones when they don’t have calcium in? Try bending a clean chicken bone to see how stiff it is, then pop it in vinegar for three days. Rinse it off and try bending it, has it gone all rubbery? Can you explain why?

*Note for super scientists: are eggs really a good substitute for teeth? Of course your teeth are much stronger than the eggshells but they are made of a similar material. The egg shells contain mainly calcium carbonate while tooth enamel is mainly calcium phosphate but both dissolve in acid.

You can find more cool experiments on our Home Science page…or book a Fab Scientist to visit your birthday party or school for lots of whizz-popping science fun!


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Lava lamps work by taking two substances that don’t mix (usually wax and water) and then heating it to make the ‘lava’ move around. This version doesn’t need wax or heat, just cooking oil, coloured water and a bit of chemistry.

You will need:

•       1 empty plastic bottle (500ml is a good size, still water bottles work best as they have a flat bottom!).

•       Water

•       Food colouring

•       Oil (any vegetable oil will do)

•       Fizzy tablets (soluble vitamin C, cheap versions from a pound shop are perfect!)

•       Small light or torch (pound shop good for this too!)

•       A tray to catch any spillages

First we need to assemble the lava lamp. Stand the bottle on the tray and half fill with water, pop a few drops of food colouring in until you’re happy with the colour. Next, pour in the oil, nearly up to the top (you might need a funnel and a grown-up for this bit!). Leave it to settle for a few minutes, when all the oil is at the top it is ready.

Now to make it move. Drop in a small piece of a fizzy tablet and watch what happens. You should see the bubbles carrying the coloured water up through the oil. You can stand the bottle (carefully!) on a small light or hold a torch underneath it for a real lava lamp effect.

If you want to keep it for another day you can put the lid on … but you MUST wait for it to stop fizzing first. If you put the lid on too soon gas will build up and it could be dangerous.

So how does this work? Oil and water won’t mix because oil is hydrophobic (this means it does NOT like water). The fizzy tablet reacts with the water to make carbon dioxide gas (just like the vinegar and bicarbonate of soda experiments). These bubbles of gas are less dense, basically lighter, than the oil so can bubble up to the top.

You can find lots of experiments to try on our Home Science page…or invite a Fab Scientist to your birthday party or school for more cool science fun!


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Oobleck is simple to make but the most messy fun you can have with your kitchen ingredients. All you need is some cornflour and water, about a cup of water mixed with a cup and a half of cornflour works well. You can add a bit of food colouring if you like. Green is slimetastic but go with any colours you fancy, pink and glittery can be lots of fun.

Now to experiment…

Try to decide if the Oobleck is a solid or a liquid. Try to press it hard, solid or liquid? Try pouring it, solid or liquid? It’s actually neither, it has a fancy scientific name of a ‘non-Newtonian fluid’, this means it can behave like either. Try stabbing it hard with a spoon, suddenly it’s solid, let the spoon rest on top and it sinks. Weird, huh? You can squeeze it into a ball, it feels all hard but as soon as you let go (or hand it to an unsuspecting victim!) it will collapse and go runny. Make up your own experiments, get your hands in it, get gooey and have fun. When you’re done, leave it to dry and keep for another day (don’t use it in the gravy though!).

Good vibrations

The Oobleck gets even more odd if you get them vibrating. I’ve put some on an old speaker (covered in clingfilm) and played some loud music through it. If you get the right sounds, the oobleck will start to jump and dance about. There is a video on our Facebook page if you want to see this without risking your speakers! There are also some amazing videos on YouTube of people who have taken the oobleck experimenting to the extreme by filling whole swimming pools with it!

So what’s going on?

The tiny bits of cornflour have jagged edges, when you press them together they get stuck and can’t move past each other, so you have a solid. If you stop pressing, they come unstuck and can flow again like a liquid.

There are lots more home science experiments to try on our Home Science page. Or invite a Fab Scientist to your birthday party or school and we’ll bring all the kit and take away the mess!