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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?
This Summery Science Veggie Experiment is a great way to demonstrate the way plants pull water from beneath the ground up into their stems and leaves. This experiment is perfect for preschoolers and school-aged children and a great way to stay cool on a sunny summer afternoon. So, let’s do it!
Staying hydrated is critical to maintaining good health. You probably encourage your kids to drink plenty of water, particularly now when we’re all sweating out so much of our moisture to stay cool under the hot summer sun.
But we’re not the only ones who need to stay hydrated!
Our pets, and even our plants, need water to survive. Yup, plants! Plants use water to transport nutrients out of the dirt and into their tissue and also to help keep their cells plump and sturdy – that’s why plants get limp and saggy when they’re in need of watering.
Water is also a key ingredient in photosynthesis, the process by which plants turn sunlight into food. But unlike people and animals, plants don’t have mouths to drink with. So how DO plants acquire and circulate water?
Gather Your Materials:
Fresh celery stalk with plenty of leaves
Food coloring (blue or red works best)
Water
Knife
Fill a glass half full of water.
Add a tablespoon of food coloring and stir.
Trim the bottom of your celery stalk to expose a fresh bottom.
Place the stalk in the glass so that the stem is in the water, but the leaves are not, and take a photo with your phone.
Leave as-is overnight.
The next day, compare your celery stalk to the photo you took the night before!
Does anything look different? Ask your kids a few questions about what they see, including:
Do you think the water has moved up into the celery stalk?
Why do you think this? How can you tell?
How do you think the water traveled through the celery stalk?
Once you’ve observed and discussed the changes to your celery stalk, try cutting about a quarter inch off the bottom. There may be small dots of color (the same color as your food coloring) on the base of the stalk.
Explain to your kids that these dots are the bottoms of the plant’s xylem – small tubes inside the plant that suck up the water and nutrients like a straw and circulate them through the plant so that it can stay healthy, stand up tall, and make its own food.
This Summery Science Veggie Experiment is a great way to demonstrate the way plants pull water from beneath the ground up into their stems and leaves. This experiment is perfect for preschoolers and school-aged children and a great way to stay cool on a sunny summer afternoon. So, let’s do it!
Staying hydrated is critical to maintaining good health. You probably encourage your kids to drink plenty of water, particularly now when we’re all sweating out so much of our moisture to stay cool under the hot summer sun.
But we’re not the only ones who need to stay hydrated!
Our pets, and even our plants, need water to survive. Yup, plants! Plants use water to transport nutrients out of the dirt and into their tissue and also to help keep their cells plump and sturdy – that’s why plants get limp and saggy when they’re in need of watering.
Water is also a key ingredient in photosynthesis, the process by which plants turn sunlight into food. But unlike people and animals, plants don’t have mouths to drink with. So how DO plants acquire and circulate water?
Gather Your Materials:
Fresh celery stalk with plenty of leaves
Food coloring (blue or red works best)
Water
Knife
Fill a glass half full of water.
Add a tablespoon of food coloring and stir.
Trim the bottom of your celery stalk to expose a fresh bottom.
Place the stalk in the glass so that the stem is in the water, but the leaves are not, and take a photo with your phone.
Leave as-is overnight.
The next day, compare your celery stalk to the photo you took the night before!
Does anything look different? Ask your kids a few questions about what they see, including:
Do you think the water has moved up into the celery stalk?
Why do you think this? How can you tell?
How do you think the water traveled through the celery stalk?
Once you’ve observed and discussed the changes to your celery stalk, try cutting about a quarter inch off the bottom. There may be small dots of color (the same color as your food coloring) on the base of the stalk.
Explain to your kids that these dots are the bottoms of the plant’s xylem – small tubes inside the plant that suck up the water and nutrients like a straw and circulate them through the plant so that it can stay healthy, stand up tall, and make its own food.
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!
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