Science Experiments

Question: Does detergent help to remove soil from clothes?

Experiment: Put a shirt with soil on it in a bucket with water only and put another shirt with soil on it in a bucket with water and detergent mixture.

Conclusions: Water alone will not remove the soil because the oil and grease in soil repel the water molecules. Detergent does help to remove soil. The detergent creates opposing forces of attracting and repelling water that loosens the soil and suspends it in the water.

Question: Will cardboard, plastic, styrofoam, or aluminum foil placed between 2 magnets stop them from attracting to each other?

Experiment: Put each material between two magnets to test whether the magnets are still pulled together.

Conclusions: Cardboard, plastic, styrofoam, and aluminum foil did not stop the magnets from attracting to each other. A magnetic field can pass through non-magnetic materials like cardboard, plastic, styrofoam, and aluminum foil.

Question: Is a dark shirt or a light shirt warmer in sunlight?

Experiment: Wrap a thermometer in a black t-shirt and wrap another thermometer in a white t-shirt. Place the shirts in sunlight. After 20 minutes, open the shirts and read the thermometer.

Conclusions: A dark shirt is warmer than a light shirt in sunlight. Temperatures are affected by color. Black colored clothes absorb all of the colors from the light spectrum, while white reflects all of the colors of the light spectrum.

Question: Does yeast affect decay of fruit?

Experiment: Put 2 banana slices in separate containers and sprinkle one banana with dry active yeast. Cover the containers and put in a warm, dark place. Compare the bananas after 3 days.

Conclusions: The banana with yeast decayed faster than the banana without yeast. The banana with yeast had more signs of decay like more softening, runniness, and brown color. Yeast breaks down sugars and starches in plant material and speeds up the decay process. In nature, yeast is often found in plant leaves, fruit, and soil.

Question: When throwing a ball, will a light ball or heavy ball go farther?

Experiment: Throw a plastic ball (light ball) from a point. Now throw a basketball (heavy ball) from the same point. Check which ball is farther away.

Conclusions: The light ball went farther. When the force on two objects is the same, the lighter object goes farther than the heavier object because it has less mass. Mass is the amount of material in an object. The heavier object has more mass which slows down the rate of motion.

Question: What happens when one marble is pushed to a line of marbles?

Experiment: Line up 5 marbles so that they touch each other. Push another marble towards the first marble in the line.

Conclusions: The marble you pushed collided with the first marble in the line and only the marble at the end of the line rolled away and none of the other marbles moved. Kinetic energy is the energy of a moving object. The kinetic energy from the marble that hit the line of marbles was transferred through all of the marbles to the last one.

Question: Will adding more borax make slime thicker?

Experiment: In a plastic cup, add 1 tablespoon of warm water and mix in ¼ teaspoon of borax to make the borax solution. In another cup make the glue solution by mixing 1 tablespoon of water and 1 tablespoon of Elmer's or PVA glue. Slowly pour all of the borax solution into the glue solution, and stir. Now repeat this recipe with new cups except use 1 teaspoon of borax instead of ¼ so that this will be your higher concentration of borax to compare to the lower concentration of borax you just made.

Conclusions: More borax made slime thicker. Borax is a slime activator that contains borate ions. Glue is a polymer and is made of long repeating identical molecules that flow past one another keeping the glue in a liquid state. When borate ions mix with glue, it starts to connect these long molecules together. They crosslink as they tangle and mix until the substance is less like the liquid you started with. It has formed into a thick stretchy substance instead. The more concentrated the borax, the thicker and drier the slime. The lower the concentration of borax, the thinner and wetter the slime.

Question: Does land or water get warm faster?

Experiment: Fill one cup with water and another cup with dirt. Place the cups in the freezer for 10 minutes. Take out and place a thermometer in each cup to find their temperatures. Place the cups in the sun for 15 minutes. Find the temperature of each.

Conclusions: The cup of dirt was warmer than the cup of water after placing in the sun. Sunlight warms land faster than water. On a hot day, the sand on a beach is much warmer than the water in the ocean. When you dig in the sand on a beach, the top level of sand is warmer than the sand below it.

Question: What happens when you add ice cubes to boiling water?

Experiment: Put water in a pot on a stove and bring it to a boil. Then add 5 ice cubes to the pot.

Conclusions: The boiling stopped when the ice cubes were added to the boiling water. Heat moves from a warm to cold area. In this case, heat from the burner stopped making the hot water boil and moved to making the ice melt because the ice cubes were the coldest objects in the pot. When the ice melted, the water started to boil again.

Question: Will a plant grow up toward the sun if it is tilted?

Experiment: Place 2 potted plants in a sunny location. Put one plant on its side and another upright. Water the plants each day.

Conclusions: The plant that was placed on its side grew upward. Plants know which is is up and begin growing in that direction. A plant will adjust the direction of growth in order to find up toward the sun.