Are illness or cold weather keeping you home with the kids? Do some simple science experiments. Our go to source is the Steve Spangler book Naked Eggs and Flying Potatoes sitting on our bookshelf. This simple experiment introduces kids to chemical bonds.
Materials:
Milk
Dinner Plate
Food Coloring of various colors
Liquid dish soap
Cotton swabs
Procedure:
1. Fill the bottom of the plate with milk.
2. In the center of the plate, but not touching each other, add a drop of each different color of food coloring.
3. Carefully dab a cotton swab into the center of the milk, do not stir, and observe.
4. Add a drop of dish soap onto another cotton swab. Now place this swab into the center of the milk and hold there for about 10 seconds and watch what happens!
5. Take another cotton swab with dish soap and put in another spot and see what happens.
Why it Happens:
1. Milk contains fat and protein which are sensitive to the surrounding solution.
2. The dish soap weakens the bonds that hold the proteins and fat in the milk. The dish soap molecules have a water-loving part that dissolves in water and a water-hating part that attaches to the fat in the milk.
3. The fat molecules start moving all over the place as the soap molecules try to join them. In the meantime the food coloring molecules are pushed all over the place, making a fun way to see what is happening.
