Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Science Rules!


Jared and Connor get together every Tuesday evening (while Jared's sister is taking dance class) and use this book, Totally Irresponsible Science Projects, for some scientific fun!!

Here they are having fun with colloids...and lots of purple food dye.  A colloid is the 4th state of of matter, that is neither a solid nor a liquid. although it has characteristics of of both. The colloid that they created comes from the tiny particles of cornstarch that have remained suspended in the water.  Colloids move strangely, displaying a property known as isotropy. This means that the mixture remains like a fluid until agitated. At that point it behaves like a solid.
Plus, this concoction makes a huge mess, so what's not to love!!
Even the girls enjoyed playing with he colloid too.

 The Rubber Chicken Bone...for this experiment they submersed a chicken leg bone in a jar of vinegar.
The scientific explanation-- We're told drinking milk (and other dairy and high calcium products) will give us lots of calcium to help build our bones.  in fact, calcium doesn't just build the bones: it keeps them rigid.  And it does the same with chicken bones.  Vinegar is a mild acid, but it is still strong enough (given time) to dissolve the calcium (which is a base) in the chicken bone.  After a few days, it's done it's job and you've go your real-life rubber chicken bone!

To quote Connor   "SCIENCE RULES!!!"

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