Science Kits

Lydia got a science kit as a present a little while back, and for Christmas, all the girls got a sweet making kit (with a strong science vibe to it). Here they are learning about pH indicator, yeast, and jelly sweets.

More experiments

 Another science experiment to keep things interesting! This time we made some indicator using red cabbage. We really didn't expect much from this, but the range of colours with different alkalies and acids was really quite impressive!

The foul-smelling indicator itself...

And how it looked after mixing with soaps, vinegars, fruit juice, bleach and several other things...

DNA

In the name of entertaining things to do while cooped up in the house, we are trying some science experiments. The most recent (and I thought most impressive) was extracting DNA from an onion: you break down the onion's cells and, when poured into an alcohol-based solution, the strands of DNA combine into threads that you can see with just your naked eye. I heard about this one from one of my work chums who had successfully done it with his children: he sent me scans of the book he used but the gist of the experiment can also be found here.

Needless to say I think the girls were a bit underwhelmed with this one: not as good as the water rocket anyway. Plenty more stuff to try yet though!

Those whispy dark bits are the DNA 

Rainbow!

Naomi got a "Rainbow Lab" kit at Christmas, which has a few experiments related to colour. There are a few crystals that soak up water and expand into a kind of jelly, then dry and shrink again. There are also some food colourings to try various combinations of mixes. She has had a lot of fun doing some basic science!

We got to do a proper design-of-experiments (Latin hypercube) to try mixing the colours in different combinations.

That promotion was easier than I expected!

The jelly version of the crystals

...and after they had dried out

This was showing how the colours ran into each other to make a rainbow effect

Week off

Making use of my research-so-not-quite-as-much-teaching job for a few more weeks, this week I took a week off. It's been very busy the past few months and so I wanted a little time around the house with my girls. It started last weekend with a visit with Miriam and Naomi to the Science Fair at the university: they were both very engaged in the various activities. Then most of the week I was around the house with Jay and the younger two, catching up on some odd jobs (now we'll be living in this house for a good long time to come), playing some games, and just resting.

This bit of the science fair was demonstrating a computing problem known as Travelling Salesman Problem, that I sometimes work on. Very pleasing that the girls spent a long time here!

Some proper white coat science action.

Esther getting in on the relaxation business. 

Some fun at the park

Hurray!

The cupcake monster game just goes on and on.

Experimental

A couple of weeks back Naomi asked if we could do some science experiments. Natually this strongly appealed to me, so we duly obliged. We had a go at learning how an airplane wing works with a piece of paper, seeing water surface tension in action, and making some bubbles by mixing acid and alkali. Here is the latter...

Fill balloon with bicarbonate of soda (alkali)

fill bottle with vinegar (acid)

seal balloon onto bottle, and pour alkali into acid 

the reaction makes carbon dioxide, which makes bubbles and blows up the balloon