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Summer is raging on and its getting hot out there! Want to cool down with a yummy treat, and still learn a new thing or two? Believe it or not, creating homemade ice cream involves a great deal of chemistry. Put your STEM skills to the test for this chilly science experiment with a sweet result!
Materials:
1 cup of half-and-half
2 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon of vanilla extract
3 cups ice
1/3 cup kosher salt
Gallon-sized bags
Sandwich-sized bags
Ice cream toppings of your choice
Step One
Using your sandwich-sized baggie, combine the half-and-half, sugar, and vanilla. Be sure to combine it well by shaking it, and then squeeze out the extra air and seal it well.
Ice Cream Chemistry: Even though the half-and-half might already be slightly cold, it isn’t enough to make the ice cream take its desired solid form. These three ingredients all need to be cooled down further. But how?
Step Two
Place the ice in the gallon-sized baggie and add the salt.
Ice Cream Chemistry: The salt lowers the temperature at which water freezes. This bag of salt ice will melt even when the temperature is below the normal freezing point of water. This is the same principle in the wintertime when trucks put salt on slick, icy roads.
Step Three
Place the small bag into the ice-filled bag. Shake it vigorously for 7-10 minutes.
Step Four
Check ice cream to see if its consistency has hardened.
Ice Cream Chemistry: You might need a towel or oven mitts when you shake the bag because it becomes so cold. Due to the vigorous shaking and the ice that is now several degrees below freezing, the liquid has been cooled enough to harden it.
If you tried this experiment without the salt, the liquid would have remained in that liquid state simply because the ice wasn’t cold enough. Who knew the most important ingredient in making bagged ice cream would be salt?
Summer is raging on and its getting hot out there! Want to cool down with a yummy treat, and still learn a new thing or two? Believe it or not, creating homemade ice cream involves a great deal of chemistry. Put your STEM skills to the test for this chilly science experiment with a sweet result!
Materials:
1 cup of half-and-half
2 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon of vanilla extract
3 cups ice
1/3 cup kosher salt
Gallon-sized bags
Sandwich-sized bags
Ice cream toppings of your choice
Step One
Using your sandwich-sized baggie, combine the half-and-half, sugar, and vanilla. Be sure to combine it well by shaking it, and then squeeze out the extra air and seal it well.
Ice Cream Chemistry: Even though the half-and-half might already be slightly cold, it isn’t enough to make the ice cream take its desired solid form. These three ingredients all need to be cooled down further. But how?
Step Two
Place the ice in the gallon-sized baggie and add the salt.
Ice Cream Chemistry: The salt lowers the temperature at which water freezes. This bag of salt ice will melt even when the temperature is below the normal freezing point of water. This is the same principle in the wintertime when trucks put salt on slick, icy roads.
Step Three
Place the small bag into the ice-filled bag. Shake it vigorously for 7-10 minutes.
Step Four
Check ice cream to see if its consistency has hardened.
Ice Cream Chemistry: You might need a towel or oven mitts when you shake the bag because it becomes so cold. Due to the vigorous shaking and the ice that is now several degrees below freezing, the liquid has been cooled enough to harden it.
If you tried this experiment without the salt, the liquid would have remained in that liquid state simply because the ice wasn’t cold enough. Who knew the most important ingredient in making bagged ice cream would be salt?
Believe it or not, July 2 is World UFO Day and we are over the moon for science! Yup, according to a recent report, there have been more than 105,000 UFO sightings reported over the last 100 years, with the majority of sightings occurring in the U.S. And every year in July, alien aficionados from around the world spend the day celebrating the possibility of life in outer space. There’s even a three-day festival in the UFO Capital of the World, Roswell, New Mexico.You and your little aliens can celebrate, too, with this UFO launcher craft you can make at home!
What You’ll Need
Plastic drinking straws
Plastic pipettes or drinking straws larger than the first set
Tape
Markers
Paper
Scissors
What You’ll Do
Find a UFO template or image online and print or draw at roughly 4x4” (you can fit about four UFOs to an 8.5x11 sheet of paper).
Have your child color the UFO with markers. Then cut out the UFO.
Next, cut the thin straw portion and bottom of the pipette off and tape it to the center of the back of your UFO. If you don’t have a pipette, you can make your own mini air pocket by attaching a rectangular piece of paper to the back of your UFO, leaving only the bottom open and sealing the other sides securely with tape.
Insert the straw into the pipette and blow to launch your UFO, then watch as it flutters gracefully to the floor in a silent space-style landing.
What You'll Learn
Motion! Explain to your kids that objects can move forward and backward horizontally on a flat plane, like when you’re pushing a toy car on the floor, and that objects can also move up and down, in a vertical motion, like tossing a ball straight up in the air. To move in any direction, objects need a force, like your kids’ breath blown through a straw or their hand pushing the ball upward.
Projectile Motion! Objects don’t always move in a straight line up, down, forward, or back, though. Sometimes, like when your kids throw a basketball into a hoop, objects move both up and forward. Objects can also move backward and down, like when your kids toss a piece of trash into a trashcan behind them. These curved movements are called Projectile Motion.
Gravity! What comes up must come down! To explain WHY objects like your UFOs can travel along curved paths, and why they don’t just keep on flying forever, we have to explain gravity. Gravity is the pull of the Earth that keeps everyone and everything on it from flying off into space. This includes your UFO. Gravity is pulling down on it as it’s flying forward, causing a downward arc or curve toward the ground.
Believe it or not, July 2 is World UFO Day and we are over the moon for science! Yup, according to a recent report, there have been more than 105,000 UFO sightings reported over the last 100 years, with the majority of sightings occurring in the U.S. And every year in July, alien aficionados from around the world spend the day celebrating the possibility of life in outer space. There’s even a three-day festival in the UFO Capital of the World, Roswell, New Mexico.You and your little aliens can celebrate, too, with this UFO launcher craft you can make at home!
What You’ll Need
Plastic drinking straws
Plastic pipettes or drinking straws larger than the first set
Tape
Markers
Paper
Scissors
What You’ll Do
Find a UFO template or image online and print or draw at roughly 4x4” (you can fit about four UFOs to an 8.5x11 sheet of paper).
Have your child color the UFO with markers. Then cut out the UFO.
Next, cut the thin straw portion and bottom of the pipette off and tape it to the center of the back of your UFO. If you don’t have a pipette, you can make your own mini air pocket by attaching a rectangular piece of paper to the back of your UFO, leaving only the bottom open and sealing the other sides securely with tape.
Insert the straw into the pipette and blow to launch your UFO, then watch as it flutters gracefully to the floor in a silent space-style landing.
What You'll Learn
Motion! Explain to your kids that objects can move forward and backward horizontally on a flat plane, like when you’re pushing a toy car on the floor, and that objects can also move up and down, in a vertical motion, like tossing a ball straight up in the air. To move in any direction, objects need a force, like your kids’ breath blown through a straw or their hand pushing the ball upward.
Projectile Motion! Objects don’t always move in a straight line up, down, forward, or back, though. Sometimes, like when your kids throw a basketball into a hoop, objects move both up and forward. Objects can also move backward and down, like when your kids toss a piece of trash into a trashcan behind them. These curved movements are called Projectile Motion.
Gravity! What comes up must come down! To explain WHY objects like your UFOs can travel along curved paths, and why they don’t just keep on flying forever, we have to explain gravity. Gravity is the pull of the Earth that keeps everyone and everything on it from flying off into space. This includes your UFO. Gravity is pulling down on it as it’s flying forward, causing a downward arc or curve toward the ground.
Ever wonder how we make our Beaker Creatures pods so fizzy and fun?? Check out this awesome DIY experiment with erupting results! Make your own bath bomb and find out the science behind how it works with our friends the Beaker Creatures!
You will need:
1 cup baking soda
1/2 cup citric acid
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup Epsom salt
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp. essential oil
1 or 2 tsp water
Food coloring
Bath bomb mold
Measure out all of the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix well.
Combine the oils and the food coloring in a separate bowl and mix well. Slowly add this mixture to the dry ingredient bowl.
The texture of the mixture should clump and feel like wet sand. Add the teaspoons of water until you get this texture. Only add the amount of water necessary until the mixture clumps ( you may not use all 2 teaspoons).
Put some oil on the inside of the bath bomb molds and pack the mixture firmly into the molds.
Let dry for 24 hours (waiting is always the hard part!)
Gently take the bombs out of the molds. Throw them in the bath and watch them erupt with color!
If you want to make a bath bomb with your own creature inside, hide a toy in the mixture while it is still wet. When the bomb dissolves, the kids will have a fun surprise, just like Beaker Creatures! Don't forget to check out all the cool sets we have to get the Beaker Creatures out of their pods!
The science behind it:
When baking soda and citric acid are mixed together and then put in the bath, they start a chemical reaction! The reaction makes a lot of bubbles which are made out of carbon dioxide gas. It is totally safe and makes for lots of fizzles and fun!
Ever wonder how we make our Beaker Creatures pods so fizzy and fun?? Check out this awesome DIY experiment with erupting results! Make your own bath bomb and find out the science behind how it works with our friends the Beaker Creatures!
You will need:
1 cup baking soda
1/2 cup citric acid
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup Epsom salt
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp. essential oil
1 or 2 tsp water
Food coloring
Bath bomb mold
Measure out all of the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix well.
Combine the oils and the food coloring in a separate bowl and mix well. Slowly add this mixture to the dry ingredient bowl.
The texture of the mixture should clump and feel like wet sand. Add the teaspoons of water until you get this texture. Only add the amount of water necessary until the mixture clumps ( you may not use all 2 teaspoons).
Put some oil on the inside of the bath bomb molds and pack the mixture firmly into the molds.
Let dry for 24 hours (waiting is always the hard part!)
Gently take the bombs out of the molds. Throw them in the bath and watch them erupt with color!
If you want to make a bath bomb with your own creature inside, hide a toy in the mixture while it is still wet. When the bomb dissolves, the kids will have a fun surprise, just like Beaker Creatures! Don't forget to check out all the cool sets we have to get the Beaker Creatures out of their pods!
The science behind it:
When baking soda and citric acid are mixed together and then put in the bath, they start a chemical reaction! The reaction makes a lot of bubbles which are made out of carbon dioxide gas. It is totally safe and makes for lots of fizzles and fun!
These fun collectible creatures come from many distant planets, and they all have their own unique characteristics. What if we told you that you can find and examine your very own creatures right in your backyard?
Try to see if you can find the closest earth relative to our outer space creatures! This fun outdoor activity will keep your kids entertained, while teaching identification and classification skills. Let the science begin!
While heading out to the backyard, be sure to bring some equipment to capture and handle your critters.
You can use:
A shoebox or cup for an observation station
A large tweezers for gently handling what you find.
A magnifying glass will also be helpful to really see the characteristics of whatever creatures you find! If you have the Beaker Creatures™ Magnification Chamber you can use that for easy and on-the-go observation like below!
A printout of all the creatures to easily identify which animal is the closest relative!
Now that we're ready let's begin our exploration!
We found an ant! This animal has six legs, two antennae and three main body parts; the head, thorax, and abdomen. Which Beaker Creature is an ant most like?
Definitely Stuckly!
What's next?
We found a worm! This animal has no legs, no wings, and has one long body. Which Beaker Creature is the worm most like?
We think Blerk!
Now try your own adventure! Can you find an animal in your backyard that looks like the following Beaker Creature Flylo? (Hint: he buzzes and is often a guest at picnics!)
Once you find it, write down the characteristics and compare and contrast the similarities and differences between your creature and Flylo!
The whole backyard is a science experiment waiting to happen this summer with Beaker Creatures! Enjoy!
These fun collectible creatures come from many distant planets, and they all have their own unique characteristics. What if we told you that you can find and examine your very own creatures right in your backyard?
Try to see if you can find the closest earth relative to our outer space creatures! This fun outdoor activity will keep your kids entertained, while teaching identification and classification skills. Let the science begin!
While heading out to the backyard, be sure to bring some equipment to capture and handle your critters.
You can use:
A shoebox or cup for an observation station
A large tweezers for gently handling what you find.
A magnifying glass will also be helpful to really see the characteristics of whatever creatures you find! If you have the Beaker Creatures™ Magnification Chamber you can use that for easy and on-the-go observation like below!
A printout of all the creatures to easily identify which animal is the closest relative!
Now that we're ready let's begin our exploration!
We found an ant! This animal has six legs, two antennae and three main body parts; the head, thorax, and abdomen. Which Beaker Creature is an ant most like?
Definitely Stuckly!
What's next?
We found a worm! This animal has no legs, no wings, and has one long body. Which Beaker Creature is the worm most like?
We think Blerk!
Now try your own adventure! Can you find an animal in your backyard that looks like the following Beaker Creature Flylo? (Hint: he buzzes and is often a guest at picnics!)
Once you find it, write down the characteristics and compare and contrast the similarities and differences between your creature and Flylo!
The whole backyard is a science experiment waiting to happen this summer with Beaker Creatures! Enjoy!
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