CANDLE SEESAW EXPERIMENT

Materials:

 Candle

 Needle

 2 Identical size drinking glass

 Match/Lighter

 Paper

How does it work?

Let’s start by thinking about the seesaw you played on as a young kid. The seesaw is not just a
playground toy—it is an example of a simple machine. In physics, simple machines are devices that make it
easier to do work. A lever is an example of a simple machine. A lever is a straight rod or board that pivots on a
stationary point called a pivot point, or fulcrum. Levers are often used to lift heavy loads. A seesaw, a shovel, a
fishing pole, a pair of scissors, a baseball bat, and a wheelbarrow are all examples of levers.

What makes a playground seesaw fun is changing the masses (or the heavy loads!) on the ends of the
board. However, unlike the Dripping Candle Seesaw, the playground toy moves up and down with some help
from the pushing force of little legs. Since the candles don’t have legs, there has to be another explanation.

As you might have guessed, part of the secret of the Dripping Candle Seesaw is actually in the name of
the activity . . . dripping. The rotational action of the Candle Seesaw comes from the changing mass of the
candles—potential energy that gets turned into rotational kinetic energy.

While it might have just sounded like a polite thing to do, putting down the newspaper to catch the wax
drippings is the key to understanding how this works. Over time, you noticed that the candles began to drip
wax, and in doing so they lost potential energy. If both candles dripped wax at exactly the same rate, there
would be no movement—but this happens only when both candles are lit at exactly the same time. As the
heavier candle in the seesaw moves downward, the angled flame causes the candle wax to melt faster and drip
more. When the dripping candle loses enough mass, it also loses potential energy and moves upward (just like
a seesaw). Now the candle on the other end moves downward, the angled flame melts the wax, which drops
onto the paper, and the seesaw is set back into motion.

SAFETY INFORMATION

WARNING! Since flames are involved, young scientists will need to round up some adult supervision before
attempting this experiment.
 OPTICAL INVERSION EXPERIMENT
Materials:

 Clear glass

 A drawing of 2 arrows

 Water

How does it work?

No, you aren’t going crazy and you haven’t found yourself with Alice in Wonderland
staring at arrows pointing in opposite directions. In fact, you have just demonstrated a physics
concept called refraction, the bending of light.

`When the arrow is moved to a particular distance behind the glass, it looks like it
reversed itself. When light passes from one material to another, it can bend or refract. In the
experiment that you just completed, light traveled from the air, through the glass, through the
water, through the back of the glass, and then back through the air, before hitting the arrow.
Anytime that light passes from one medium, or material, into another, it refracts.

Just because light bends when it travels through different materials, doesn’t explain why
the arrow reverses itself. To explain this, you must think about the glass of water as if it is a
magnifying glass. When light goes through a magnifying glass the light bends toward the
center. Where the light all comes together is called the focal point, but beyond the focal point
the image appears to reverse because the light rays that were bent pass each other and the
light that was on the right side is now on the left and the left on the right, which makes the
arrow appear to be reversed.
 ELEPHANT TOOTHPASTE EXPERIMENT
Materials:

 A clean 16 ounce plastic soda bottle

 1/2 cup 20-volume hydrogen peroxide liquid (20-volume is a 6% solution, ask an adult to get this from a
beauty supply store or hair salon)

 1 Tablespoon (one packet) of dry yeast

 3 Tablespoons of warm water

 Liquid dish washing soap

 Food coloring

 Small cup

 Safety goggles

NOTE: The foam will overflow from the bottle, so be sure to do this experiment on a washable surface,
or place the bottle on a tray.

What to do:

1. Hydrogen peroxide can irritate skin and eyes, so put on those safety goggles and ask an adult to
carefully pour the hydrogen peroxide into the bottle.

2. Add 8 drops of your favorite food coloring into the bottle.

3. Add about 1 tablespoon of liquid dish soap into the bottle and swish the bottle around a bit to mix it.

4. In a separate small cup, combine the warm water and the yeast together and mix for about 30 seconds.

5. Now the adventure starts! Pour the yeast water mixture into the bottle (a funnel helps here) and watch
the foaminess begin!

How does it work?

Foam is awesome! The foam you made is special because each tiny foam bubble is filled with oxygen.
The yeast acted as a catalyst (a helper) to remove the oxygen from the hydrogen peroxide. Since it did this very
fast, it created lots and lots of bubbles. Did you notice the bottle got warm? Your experiment created a
reaction called an Exothermic Reaction – that means it not only created foam, it created heat! The foam
produced is just water, soap, and oxygen so you can clean it up with a sponge and pour any extra liquid left in
the bottle down the drain.
This experiment is sometimes called “Elephant’s Toothpaste” because it looks like toothpaste coming
out of a tube, but don’t get the foam in your mouth!
DANCING RAISINS EXPERIMENT
Carbon dioxide gas dissolved in soft drinks gives them their fizz. You can use the carbon dioxide fizz
from a soft drink to make raisins dance.

Materials

 a can of colorless soda (e.g., 7-Up or Sprite)

 a tall, clear glass or plastic cup

 several raisins (fresh raisins work the best)

Procedure:

1. Pour the can of soda into the tall glass. Notice the bubbles coming up from the bottom of the glass. The
bubbles are carbon dioxide gas released from the liquid.
2. Drop 6 or 7 raisins into the glass. Watch the raisins for a few seconds. Describe what is happening to
the raisins. Do they sink or float? Keep watching; what happens in the next several minutes?

How does it work?

Raisins are denser than the liquid in the soda, so initially they sink to the bottom of the glass. The
carbonated soft drink releases carbon dioxide bubbles. When these bubbles stick to the rough surface of a
raisin, the raisin is lifted because of the increase in buoyancy. When the raisin reaches the surface, the bubbles
pop, and the carbon dioxide gas escapes into the air. This causes the raisin to lose buoyancy and sink. This
rising and sinking of the raisins continues until most of the carbon dioxide has escaped, and the soda goes flat.
Furthermore, with time the raisin gets soggy and becomes too heavy to rise to the surface.

You might want to try other objects to see if they exhibit this behavior. Any object whose density is just
slightly greater than water’s and has a rough surface to which the gas bubbles can attach should be able to
dance in the carbonated water. Some of the more common dancing substances are mothballs and pieces of
uncooked pasta. Try putting other objects in the carbonated water. Can you find other substances that dance?

Carbonated beverages are prepared by putting the beverage into a can under high pressure of carbon
dioxide gas. This high pressure causes the carbon dioxide gas to dissolve in the liquid. When you open a can of
soda, the noise you hear is produced by the carbon dioxide gas as it rushes out of the can. When the can is
opened, the decreased pressure allows some of the carbon dioxide gas dissolved in the liquid to escape. This is
what makes the bubbles in a soft drink.
 Another way to do this experiment is to generate the carbon dioxide gas using the reaction of baking
soda and vinegar. Fill your glass about 1/2 full with water. Add one teaspoon of baking soda and stir until it is
dissolved in the water. Add 6 or 7 raisins to the glass. SLOWLY pour in vinegar until the glass is about 3/4 full.
The vinegar and baking soda react to form carbon dioxide bubbles, and the raisins will dance just as in the soft
drink!

BLACK SNAKE EXPERIMENT

Materials:

 powdered sugar
 sodium bicarbonate (baking soda)
 lighter fluid or alcohol

Procedure:
1. Mix together a batch of 4 parts powdered sugar to 1 part baking soda. Add a little fuel to the
mixture and ignite.

How does it work?

After the black snake is lit, the firework smokes and creates ash resembling a snake. This happens
due to an intumescent reaction. The sodium bicarbonate produces carbon dioxide gas, while the sugar
creates carbon containing ash.
Your snake will stay on the ground and will not do any fancy fireworks stuff like emit sparks or flares,
and it won't produce any sound, but there will be smoke.
 LAVA LAMP EXPERIMENT
Materials:
 Oil
 Water
 Alka-Seltzer
Procedure:
1. Fill the bottle three-quarters full with vegetable oil.
2. Fill the rest of the bottle with water (almost to the top but not overflowing).
3. Add about ten drops of food coloring. Be sure to make the water fairly dark in color. Notice that the
food coloring only colors the water and not the oil.
4. Divide the Alka-Seltzer tablet into four pieces.
5. Drop one of the tiny pieces of Alka-Seltzer into the oil and water mixture. Watch
what happens. When the bubbling stops, add another chunk of Alka-Seltzer.
6. When you have used up all of the Alka-Seltzer and the bubbling has completely stopped, screw on the
soda bottle cap. Tip the bottle back and forth and watch the wave appear. The tiny droplets of liquid
join together to make one big wavelike blob.

How does it work?

First of all, you confirmed what you already know—oil and water do not mix. Even if you try to shake up
the bottle, the oil breaks up into small little drops, but it doesn’t mix with the water. Why is it that oil and
water are such opposites?
Oil and water don’t mix because of how their molecules are constructed. Water is what is known as
a polar molecule. A water molecule is shaped like a V, with an oxygen atom at the bottom point of the V and a
hydrogen atom on each of the two top ends. However, there is unequal sharing of electrons between the
hydrogen and oxygen atoms. This means that the bottom of the molecule has a negative electrical charge,
while the top carries a positive charge.
Vegetable oil, on the other hand, is a nonpolar molecule made of long chains of hydrocarbons—strings
of carbon atoms bonded to hydrogen atoms. Unlike the water molecule, there is equal sharing of electrons
between the carbon and hydrogen atoms. This means that the electrical charges of the atoms are not
separated, so the molecules don’t have opposite positive and negative ends.
If you were to think of molecules like groups of people, the polar molecules hang out with other polar
molecules, and the nonpolar molecules with other nonpolar molecules. This brings us back to the reason why
oil and water don’t mix. Water is a polar molecule, and it just doesn’t hang out with nonpolar molecules like
oil. Scientists say that oil and water are immiscible.
The adage “like dissolves like” will help you remember what will mix with what. Salt and water mix because
both molecules are polar—like dissolves like. It’s also easy to mix vegetable oil and olive oil, or motor oil and
peanut oil . . . but that’s gross. You also noticed that food coloring only mixes with water . . . and now you
know why. Food coloring is a polar molecule because it dissolves in water. In other words, food coloring and
water are miscible. Vegetable oil is not affected by the food coloring because they are polar opposites.
Here’s the surprising part . . . the Alka-Seltzer tablet reacts with the water to make tiny bubbles of
carbon dioxide. These bubbles attach themselves to the blobs of colored water and cause them to float to the
surface. When the bubbles pop, the color blobs sink back to the bottom of the bottle, and the whole thing
starts over until the Alka-Seltzer is used up. When the chemical reaction between the Alka-Seltzer and water is
over and the bubbling stops, you’re left with a cool looking wave bottle that will sit proudly on your desk.