Tea rocket

YOU'LL NEED

 teabag

 non-flammable plate

 scissors

 lighter or match

WHAT'S HAPPENING?

The flame created by burning the teabag heated the air inside the teabag cylinder. When the air
was heated energy was transferred to individual pieces of air called air molecules. The air
molecules moved around more quickly and spread out to take up more space. This means that
the air molecules were further apart from each other and therefore the air was less dense. The
warmer, less dense air rose above the cooler, denser air.

When the teabag burned, the teabag turned into ash and smoke. The smoke lifted away and all
that was left was the ash. Ash is light, so it doesn’t require much force to lift it. The rising of
the less dense (heated) air inside the teabag had enough force to lift the ash of the teabag.

Alluminium can static roll

YOU'LL NEED

 head of hair (preferably attached to a body) or a jumper

 inflated rubber balloon
 empty, clean and dry aluminium can

TRY THIS

 Rub the balloon on your hair or a jumper to give it a static charge. Dry, clean hair
works best and sometimes you might need to try a few people’s hair before you can
build up enough of a charge.
 If the balloon is charged, hair will stick to it as you move the balloon away from your
head.
 Lay the aluminium can on its side on a flat table where it has room to roll.
  Hold the charged balloon very close to the aluminium can (but not touching the can or
the table) then slowly move the balloon away from the can. (The can will start to roll
and follow the balloon!)

WHAT'S HAPPENING?

Static electricity is again the culprit with our balloon and can. When you rub the balloon on
your hair you’re moving around tiny little pieces of electricity called electric charges. There are
two kinds of electric charges, positive charges and negative charges. By rubbing the balloon on
your hair you’re taking negative charges from the hair and transferring them to the balloon.
The balloon ends up negatively charged and the hair becomes positively charged. Positive and
negative charges are attracted to each other so the hair tries to stick to the balloon. It’s the
same with the can. The can has both positive and negative charges and its positive charges are
very attracted to the negative charges on the balloon, which causes the can to roll towards the
balloon.

The ultimate source of static electricity comes from the interesting properties of atoms—the
tiny pieces of matter that make up all of the materials in our universe, such as water, tables,
rocks and even us. Atoms are often visualised as miniature solar systems with a positively
charged nucleus (where the sun would be), made up of neutrons and protons, being orbited by
negatively charged electrons arranged in ‘shells’. Under normal circumstances atoms are
neutral. They have no charge because the positive charge of the nucleus is balanced out by the
negative charge of the orbiting electrons.

However, electrons aren’t necessarily stuck forever to any particular atom. To a certain extent
they can move around and it’s this movement which creates the static charge. When objects
come in contact they can sometimes exchange electrons. This is called (warning: scientific
jargon alert!) contact induced charge separation and results in one material (the material that
loses electrons) becoming positively charged and the other material (the material that gains
electrons) becoming negatively charged.

Balloon Kebab

YOU'LL NEED

two half-inflated balloons

bamboo skewer

TRY THIS

Hold a balloon in one hand and the skewer in the other.

Try and push the skewer through the side of the balloon. (It will pop.)

Get another balloon and try again, but this time carefully push the skewer through the balloon
at the neck of the balloon, next to the knot.
If the balloon doesn’t pop, line the point of the skewer up with circle of darker rubber at the top
of the balloon and very carefully push the skewer through.

WHAT'S HAPPENING?

Balloons are made of rubber and rubber is elastic. When you blow up a balloon you’re causing
most of the rubber of the balloon to become very tightly stretched. Poking a skewer into the
side of the balloon tears the rubber; it quickly springs apart and the balloon pops. However, at
the neck and top of the balloon the rubber isn’t as tightly stretched. When you push the
skewer through the balloon at those points the rubber simply folds around the skewer and the
balloon doesn’t pop.

Pepper scatter

YOU'LL NEED

 take-away food container or other clear container

 water
 pepper
 detergent in a small cup
 matchstick

TRY THIS

 Make sure the container is clean and completely free of detergents and soaps before
starting. (If it isn’t clean this activity won’t work!)
 Cover the bottom of the container with at least 3 cm of water.
 Sprinkle some pepper on top of the water and watch what happens to the pepper. (The
pepper should float.)
 Dip the matchstick in the detergent and place a drop of detergent in the middle of the
water. Watch what happens to the pepper.

WHAT'S HAPPENING?

Water has high surface tension which is why the pepper sits on top of the water when you
sprinkle the pepper into the container. High surface tension means that all of the little pieces of
water called ‘water molecules’ are holding on and pulling against each other really strongly.
This makes the surface of the water strong enough to hold up the pepper.

When you drop the detergent on the surface of the water the surface tension on that part of the
surface of the water is reduced, but not over the entire surface of the water. Some of the water
further away from the detergent still has high surface tension meaning the water molecules
further away from the detergent are still pulling against each other strongly; this leads to a
force that pulls the pepper away from the detergent
Science Ice cream

YOU'LL NEED

 small metal bowl or other metal container

 1/3 cup cream
 2 teaspoons of sugar
 ½ teaspoon vanilla essence
 small plastic spoon
 large plastic bowl, half-filled with crushed ice
 thermometer
 1½ cups table salt
 large wooden spoon

TRY THIS

 Position the end of the thermometer in the plastic bowl to measure the temperature of
the ice. It should be between 0°C and 5°C.
 Add one cup of salt to the ice and stir well with the wooden spoon. After a few minutes
measure the temperature of the salt and ice mixture. It should be below 0°C.
 Place the cream, sugar and vanilla essence into the small metal bowl and mix with the
plastic spoon until the sugar dissolves.
 Place the metal bowl in the ice and salt mixture and push it down so it is surrounded
by ice.
 Stir the cream mixture gently and continuously with the plastic spoon for about 8
minutes.
 Remove the metal bowl from the ice bath.
 Mix the remaining ½ cup of salt with the ice.
 Return the metal bowl to the ice and salt and continue stirring the cream mixture with
the plastic spoon for a further five to ten minutes, or until the mixture freezes.
 Eat your ice cream!

WHAT'S HAPPENING?

To make ice cream, the ingredients need to be at a temperature less than -3°C and steadily
mixed while the ice cream freezes. If the ingredients are simply mixed together and then placed
in a freezer, the result would be a hard, icy lump. Stirring the ingredients constantly while the
mixture is freezing prevents large, crunchy ice crystals forming and it whips air through the
mixture to make it soft and light.

Mixing the ice cream is one thing, but how can we get it below 0°C without putting it in a
freezer? Ice made from pure water has a freezing point of 0°C, but ice in a mixture of salty
water has a lower melting point. The melting point of the salty ice depends on the
concentration of salt but in this activity it should get well below -3°C.

To understand how salt can change the freezing point of ice, we first need to consider the fact
that the bowl of melting ice contains water in two states: solid and liquid. Where the solid ice
meets liquid water, water molecules are exchanged with some being released from the ice to
join the liquid water and others being captured from the liquid to join the ice. The temperature
of the mixture is 0°C which is the melting point of ice and we can say that the two states of
water are in equilibrium, although it is an unbalanced equilibrium because the surrounding
temperature is higher than 0°C so the amount of liquid increases as the ice melts.

Adding salt to the bowl causes more of the ice to melt and the temperature of the mixture to
drop due to something called freezing point depression. Normal table salt is the chemical
sodium chloride. When the salt is added to the bowl, it dissolves in the liquid water, forming
sodium ions and chloride ions. Having these ions in the liquid water means that the water is no
longer pure and each molecule in the liquid water is less likely to be captured from the liquid to
join the ice. The liquid water needs to be at a lower temperature to freeze, hence the name
‘freezing point depression’. The salt isn’t dissolved in the solid water, so the rate of melting
hasn’t changed. The unbalanced equilibrium is now even more unbalanced, with the liquid
molecules more likely to stay in the liquid and ice molecules melting into the liquid and staying
there. In the melting process, the ice molecules take up heat from their surroundings, thereby
causing the mixture to cool to the freezing point of the salt water solution.

Freezing point depression doesn’t just happen with a solution of table salt and water. It
happens with any non-volatile solute in solution, for example, other chloride salts and ethylene
glycol which is used as anti-freeze in cars to prevent the water in the cooling system from
freezing.

Soap Boat

YOU'LL NEED

 clean plastic container or bowl

 water

 plastic bread tie

 detergent

 matchstick

TRY THIS

1. Make sure your bowl is clean and free of all traces of soap or detergent then fill it with
about 3 cm of water.
 2. Gently lower the plastic bread tie so that it floats on the water.

3. Using the matchstick, place a small drop of detergent in the hole at the back of the
paper clip.

4. Stand back and break out your yacht shoes

Note: This activity will only work if the container is clean of all detergent. It will not work if the
water starts off soapy.

WHAT'S HAPPENING?

Water has high surface tension allowing the bread clip to float on top of it. Detergent reduces
the surface tension of the water behind the clip, causing the bread clip to be pulled around the
bowl by the high surface tension of the rest of the water.

In a bowl of water there are lots and lots of tiny water molecules and all these water molecules
are strongly attracted to each other. Water molecules close to the surface are more attracted to
other water molecules than the air above them and this is what causes high surface tension.
The high surface tension of the water makes the surface strong enough to hold up small
objects like the bread clip.

Detergent reduces the high surface tension of water by giving the water molecules something
else to be attracted to. A molecule of detergent is made up of two parts – a head that is
attracted to water and a tail that is repelled by water. When detergent is added to water it
normally forms a layer on top as the water-loving (hydrophilic) heads face down in the water
with the water-hating (hydrophobic) tails sticking up into the air. The water molecules on the
surface are now just as attracted to the detergent molecules above them as the other water
molecules and the high surface tension breaks down.

When you place a drop of detergent in the hole of the bread clip it reduces the surface tension
of the water, but only in a very small area. The rest of the surface of the water still has very
high surface tension and the water molecules are still really attracted to each other. The
difference in surface tension in different parts of the bowl makes the surface of the water move
away from areas of low surface tension towards areas of high surface tension. This creates a
force that pulls the paper clip around the bowl towards areas of high surface tension.

Toilet roll cooler

YOU'LL NEED

 2 small plastic drink bottles (same size and shape)

 toilet paper

 water
  thermometer

 electric fan (or a windy day)

TRY THIS

1. Fill each drink bottle with water to the same level (the water should be close to room
temperature).

2. Wrap one of the bottles in two layers of toilet paper and wet the toilet paper with water.

3. Stand the two bottles side by side in front of the fan and let the fan blow on the bottles
for twenty minutes.

4. Take a sip of water from each bottle. Has the temperature changed?

5. Leave the bottles in front of the fan and check the temperature every five or ten
minutes.

WHAT'S HAPPENING?

The water bottle wrapped in toilet paper is cooled by evaporation. For evaporation to occur,
water needs enough energy to turn from a liquid into a gas. As each molecule of water
evaporates from the toilet paper, it removes some heat from its surroundings, using this energy
to escape into the air. Standing the bottle in front of the fan speeds up the process of
evaporation.

https://www.questacon.edu.au/outreach/programs/science-circus/videos/balloons-in-bottles