First planet sighting

We caught our first look at a planet through our telescope tonight. We were able to see Jupiter, along with it's moons (the picture doesn't do it justice). We weren't even sure it was a planet at first (and we didn't know which planet until we got home and looked it up - yes, we're very amateur astronomers). We noticed a big bright thing in a part of the sky where there should have been nothing bright, according to our star wheel. At first we thought it was an airplane, like all those bright "stars" we see that flash red and blue, but through the telescope it was clearly a beautifully round planet, surrounded by a diagonal line of moons (o.k., we didn't figure out that those were moons until we looked up pictures of Jupiter). It was a very exciting night.

Levitating ball

This is one of those experiments that I've seen in a number of books and kept passing up because it seemed like one of those experiments that looks like they should work but never do. The idea is that you use a hairdryer to "float" a light ball in the air. It works using Bernoulli's principle (the same principle behind airplane flight) - the fast air moving around the ball creates an area of low pressure, effectively acting to hold the ball in a tunnel. We were flipping through one of our books and Jr. scientist A found that experiment and asked to do it. I reluctantly got out the hairdryer, pointed it up and placed it on cool air, and gently placed the ball in the air stream. I was more than a little surprised to see the ball just float there on a cushion of air. Then Jr. scientist E did the next logical experiment - she nudged the ball. It moved a little and then moved back on its own to the center of the air stream like it was attached to a spring. That really got her excited. We all had a lot of fun with this experiment.

New telescope toys

We got some new equipment for the lab telescope - a moon filter to increase clarity and a camera mount to help us take pictures. We're still learning to use the camera mount, but jr. scientist A is having fun taking pictures and movies of the moon.

Floating bubbles

This has to be one of the coolest experiments we've done. Since Jr. Scientist E loves bubbles, I've been trying to find some more bubbly experiments to do with her (although she never gets tired of watching baking sod and vinegar fizz, I sure do). I ran across a cool one where you create carbon dioxide by mixing baking soda and vinegar and then you use bubble mix and blow some bubbles into the container. Since carbon dioxide is heavier than the air inside the bubble mix bubbles, the bubbles go into the container and then come to a rest in mid-air (resting on top of the invisible carbon dioxide). The bubbles will pop if they hit the edge of the container, so you need to do this in a large container with a lot of baking soda and vinegar (ah Costco, the kitchen scientist's best friend). The effect is absolutely jaw dropping and both Jr. scientists A and E loved it.

Playing (safely) with electricity

We got Jr. scientist A a snap circuit kit where we can put together different electrical experiments (the different parts of the circuits snap onto a board like Legos). He had lots of fun trying to put every piece of the kit on the board but I was eventually able to convince him to separate out the pieces needed for the "flying saucer" experiment (the little island of circuits in the middle of the board). After a little fiddling we launched the flying saucer by putting it on the motor, getting it going fast, and then cutting the power. The little disk flew up in the sky - it was pretty cool. Bedtime got pushed back quite a bit as we played with the new toy.

Anti-gravity pepper

I didn't expect this to be such a cool effect. We put some pepper on a sheet of paper and then built up an electrostatic charge on a balloon by rubbing it against our hair (Jr. scientist A thought that was pretty funny). As we brought the balloon close to the pepper, the pepper became positively charged and started flying up off the paper and onto the balloon. As we held the balloon in place, more pepper kept flying up (and down) for a few seconds. It was so neat we kept repeating the experiment, trying to build up an electrostatic charge in different objects like plastic spoons (worked well) and cups (not so well). Jr scientist A and the senior lab members watched in amazement.

Hidden bubbles

We found this effect quite by accident. One of Jr. scientist A's new favorite things to do is to mix various ingredients together to see what happens - I think we have a budding chemist! We were adding things to red cabbage-dyed water (a pH indicator). As expected, when we added baking soda, the mixture turned blue, and adding vinegar to the same mixture caused it to bubble and then turn red. What caught us by surprise was that we next added salt and the mixture bubbled again. I had never heard of salt causing a chemical reaction resulting in bubbles, so we did some more investigating. Adding more salt turned the mixture from red (acidic) to purple, as would happen when you added a base, making us think that salt was a base (it's actually neutral). We tried combining vinegar and salt in another cup and got a rather unexciting cup of salty vinegar with no bubbles. After some google-ing, we found out that the salt wasn't actually creating bubbles, it was releasing the carbon dioxide bubbles trapped in our mixture after the baking soda and vinegar reaction. We decided to try adding salt to soda and got instant bubbles again. We even were able to create a little soda fountain (nowhere near as big as the mentos and diet coke reaction, but still cool). Jr scientists A and E both got quite a kick out of this accidental experiment, and I think it will become a new regular experiment.

Water-crayons

Jr. scientist A wanted to do an experiment with swishing water in a bottle. We started out trying to make a tornado in a bottle where you tape two bottle caps together facing opposite directions and poke a hole through them both. When you attach the caps to two bottles (one with water) and swirl the bottles, you're supposed to get what looks like a tornado. Unfortunately, our tape didn't hold and we were left with two separate bottles with holes in the cap. So what do you do with bottles with holes in the cap? Make water-crayons of course! When you turn the bottles upside-down and squeeze, you get a steady stream of water that you can use to "draw" with. We had a lot of fun drawing shapes, people, animals, or just scribbling (Jr. scientist A also had fun "drawing" on my feet every chance he got!). What a fun accidental experiment.

Peering into the microscopic world

Jr. scientist A just got a microscope (thanks Arthi and Glenn!), so we've been exploring the microscopic world. He instantly noticed that there was something very telescope-y about this new device ("it has a focus knob!"). As with the telescope, I wasn't sure how much he would be able to see through the lens, so we played the "what do you see" game. We looked at some string (top right photo), which he described as "branches" - a pretty good description. We also looked at colored sugar (bottom right photo), paper, grass, salt, sandpaper, and a few other things. Jr. scientist A had a lot of fun, but this was another one of those experiments where he had to compete with the adults for a turn!

Moon-gazing

Jr. scientist A is really into outer space right now, and he got a telescope for the holidays. We weren't quite sure if he'd be able to look through the lens or understand what he was looking at. After a few times of me setting up the telescope and having him look at the moon, he decided he wanted to see some more earth-bound objects through the telescope. We started playing a game. I would aim at something familiar from across the apartment complex (like a decoration in his bedroom window) and ask him to tell me what he saw. He was generally able to identify what I pointed the telescope at - guess he was able to see through the telescope.

Going out to look at the moon (and some local objects) through the telescope has since become a nightly ritual. The only problem is that when there are a number of adults around, it's hard for Jr. scientist A to get a turn!

High flying fun

I swear there was a time when I could make paper airplanes that flew, but that time has clearly passed. So I got a book on making paper airplanes (recommended by friend of the lab Arthi). We were able to make a bunch of really cool airplanes (some of which actually took decent flights). Although I got this book for Jr. scientist A, I was surprised at how much fun the younger Jr scientist E had watching the airplanes fly by. She eventually started toddling over to where they fell and bringing them back for another flight. We had a lot of fun seeing how different designs and different modifications resulted in different flight patterns (I have to confess that I started making two of each design because I wanted more turns!). At some point, Jr. scientist A must have decided that the planes were flying because they were made of paper and insisted on trying to fly an (unmodified) paper bag. This isn't the first time that he's gone from observer/participant to actively guiding experiments in new directions, and I have to say I'm a bit proud of that!