The Children's Theatre Ed Pack (2007)
Science - Page One
(taken from Suzuki, D. Looking at Weather. Allen and Unwin.)
What You Need:
A bicycle pump
A 4L clear bottle or jug
A cap for the bottle
A measuring cup
A partner
What to Do:
1. Pour about ½ cup (125mL) of warm water into the bottle. Holding your hand over the mouth of the bottle, give it a shake to wet the sides of the bottle.
2. Ask an adult to punch a hole in the bottle’s cap for you. The hole should be about 0.5cm across.
3. Place the cap on the bottle upside down (so that, when you need to, you can lift it away from the bottle very quickly).
4. Hold the end of the pump hose tightly against the cap on the bottle.
5. While you are holding tight, get your partner to make two or three strokes on the pump (no more!).
6. Quickly pull the cap away. You’ll hear a popping sound, and you’ll see a cloud in the bottle.
What’s Happening?
The air inside the bottle is being pushed together by the pump. This makes the air warm up. Some of the water in the jug turns into water vapour. Then, when you snatch the cap off, air expands. It gets cooler and can’t hold as much water vapour. So the water vapour condenses into water droplets, making a cloud.
(Whalley, K., Neville, C., Roberson, P. & Rickard, G. (2005). Science Focus 4. Melbourne: Pearson Education Australia.)
Aim
To investigate the effect of melting ice on water levels.
Equipment
4-6 ice cubes
cold water
beaker
another identical beaker containing frozen water as shown in figure
Method
1. Place some ice cubes (representing icebergs) in the empty beaker.
2. Add the same amount of water to each of the two beakers and mark the water level on the outside of each beaker.
3. Allow each beaker to warm enough so a significant amount of ice melts in each.
4. Compare the water level to that initially marked on each beaker.
Questions
1. Deduce whether the melting of floating icebergs contributes to a rise in sea levels.
2. Deduce whether the melting of ‘land ice’ contributes to rising sea levels.
(taken from Steve Spangler Science; www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiements/00000030)
Have you ever wondered how clouds form? Clouds are formed when water vapour is cooled enough to form tiny water droplets. This is exactly what happens when moist air rises in the atmosphere, cools, and water droplets from into clouds. Making your own cloud is a popular experiment in many science books, but you should know that the results are not very striking. Yes, you’ll see a very faint cloud (very faint), but it’s a little tricky.
Materials
1 – one litre clear plastic bottle with cap
water
matches
ADULT SUPERVISION IS REQUIRED!!!!
Directions
1. Place just enough warm water in the bottle to cover the bottom.
2. The goal of this next step is to get some smoke particles into the bottle. Light the match and let it burn for a few seconds. Blow the match out and immediately place the head of the match in the bottle. Let the smoke from the match fill the bottle. After a few seconds, the smoke will seem to disappear, but the invisible particles are still floating around in the bottle. All of this happens fairly quickly.
3. Screw the cap on the bottle, being careful not to let too much smoke out of the bottle.
4. Squeeze the sides of the bottle really hard 6 or 7 times (more squeezing may be necessary). Squeeze the bottle again, hold the squeeze for a few seconds and then quickly release. The second you release the squeeze you should see the formation of a little fog in the bottle. This is the cloud!
How does it work?
Even though we don’t see them, water molecules are in the air all around us – it’s called water vapour. When the molecules are bouncing around in the atmosphere, they don’t normally stick together.
Squeezing the sides of the bottle forces the molecules to squeeze together or compress. Releasing the pressure allows the air to expand, and in doing so, the temperature of the air becomes cooler. This cooling process allows the molecules to stick together more easily, forming tiny droplets and clouds are nothing more than tiny water droplets!
The smoke in the bottle also helps this process. Water particles will group together more easily if there are some solid particles in the air to act as a nucleus. The invisible particles serve as the nucleus and help in the formation of the cloud. Clouds on Earth form when warm air rises and its pressure is reduced. The air expands and cools, and clouds form as the temperature drops below the dew point. The invisible particles in the air may be in the form of pollution, smoke, dust or even tiny particles of dirt.
Borax Crystallized Snow Flakes
What you need:
 | White pipe cleaners cut about 10 cm long, 3 for each snowflake |
| String |
| Thread |
| Wide mouth jar |
| Boiling water |
| Borax (at the grocery store with laundry products) |
| Pencil or dowel |
What to do:
Twist three pieces of pipe cleaner together to form the snowflake points. Tie string to one point, about 1/3 of the way from the end of the point. Wrap the string around the next point at the same distance from the end. Keep wrapping around all points. Measure how much water your jar will need and boil. Put three tablespoons of borax for each cup of water to be used into the jar. Add the boiling water and stir. (You can add a little food colouring if you want your snowflake tinted slightly) Tie a thread onto one of the points and around a pencil, leaving enough length to suspend the snowflake into your jar and have it covered with water. Lay the pencil on the mouth of the jar with the snowflake immersed in the water. Leave everything overnight, and in the morning the snowflake will be covered with crystals. You can use your snowflake as a decoration or sun catcher.
