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Home’s Cool Science: Erupting Apples Experiment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eALfa21BWCI&feature=emb_logo Home's Cool! While we're all working from home, the parents, former teachers, and play experts at EI are sharing some of their favorite educational activities to help keep your family learning and growing. Check out this idea from Michael Sheridan, one of our EI Product Managers!Ages: 5-12Grade: K-6Supplies:
Procedure:
Explanation:This is a chemical reaction between the baking soda and vinegar. In this case, the baking soda (a base) and vinegar (an acid) react to form a gas called carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide created by this reaction escapes in the form of bubbles, causing the eruption you see.
EI Product Manager Michael Sheridan is a jack of all trades! An avid surfer and former international soccer competitor, this outdoor and sporting enthusiast also has a degree in Astrophysics from UCLA and eight years of product development experience in a variety of industries. Prior to helping build EI's science products and brain game lines, Michael developed everything from folding chairs to electric scooters and skateboards!
- Baking Soda
- Liquid Dish Soap
- Water
- Vinegar
- Food Coloring (optional)
Procedure:- In a bowl, mix 1 cup of baking soda, 1 tablespoon of liquid dish soap, and 1 teaspoon of water. Use your hands to mix it all together and shape into a ball. If you are adding food coloring, do that now.
- If the ball wants to crumble, add a little more water. If it’s too fluid, add a little more baking soda.
- Place the baking soda ball in the center of a large bowl.
- Slowly pour about ¾ cup of vinegar over the top of the ball. Watch it erupt!
Explanation:This is a chemical reaction between the baking soda and vinegar. In this case, the baking soda (a base) and vinegar (an acid) react to form a gas called carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide created by this reaction escapes in the form of bubbles, causing the eruption you see.
EI Product Manager Michael Sheridan is a jack of all trades! An avid surfer and former international soccer competitor, this outdoor and sporting enthusiast also has a degree in Astrophysics from UCLA and eight years of product development experience in a variety of industries. Prior to helping build EI's science products and brain game lines, Michael developed everything from folding chairs to electric scooters and skateboards!
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Posted on Aug 6, 2020
Home's Cool Science Learning Activity: Egg in a Bottle https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=62&v=zgF_x7fY9Gc&feature=emb_logoHome's Cool! While we're all working from home, the parents, former teachers, and play experts at EI are sharing some of their favorite educational activities to help keep your family learning and growing. Check out this idea from Michael Sheridan, one of our Product Managers!When the fire is burning inside the glass, it heats up the air inside the bottle. This heated air wants to spread out and escape out the top of the bottle, but the egg is blocking it from doing that. The cool air outside the bottle is at a higher pressure than the air inside the bottle, so it literally pushes the egg into the bottle.Ages: 8+Grades: 3+Supplies:• Egg• Glass bottle or jar with narrow mouth• Lighter (preferably with a long neck) or matchProcedure:1. Ask your parents to help you hard boil an egg.2. Let the egg cool, then carefully peel its shell off.3. Insert a crumpled piece of paper into the glass bottle.4. Ask your parents to drop a match or use a lighter to help you light the paper on fire.BE SURE TO DO THIS STEP OUTSIDE AND AT A SAFE DISTANCE FROM ANYTHING FLAMMABLE.5. With the fire safely contained in the bottom of the bottle, carefully set the egg on the top of the bottle.6. Watch as the egg is slowly sucked into the bottle!How do you get the egg out? Apply the same physics, just in reverse.1. Turn the bottle over so the egg is in the spout.2. Holding the bottle upside down, blow air (or have an adult do this step) into the bottle.3. The air you blow into the bottle will go around the egg and begin to create higher pressure inside the bottle and push the egg back out.EI Product Manager Michael Sheridan is a jack of all trades! An avid surfer and former international soccer competitor, this outdoor and sporting enthusiast also has a degree in Astrophysics from UCLA and eight years of product development experience in a variety of industries. Prior to helping build EI's science products and brain game lines, Michael developed everything from folding chairs to electric scooters and skateboards!
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Home's Cool Science Learning Activity: Egg in a Bottle https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=62&v=zgF_x7fY9Gc&feature=emb_logoHome's Cool! While we're all working from home, the parents, former teachers, and play experts at EI are sharing some of their favorite educational activities to help keep your family learning and growing. Check out this idea from Michael Sheridan, one of our Product Managers!When the fire is burning inside the glass, it heats up the air inside the bottle. This heated air wants to spread out and escape out the top of the bottle, but the egg is blocking it from doing that. The cool air outside the bottle is at a higher pressure than the air inside the bottle, so it literally pushes the egg into the bottle.Ages: 8+Grades: 3+Supplies:• Egg• Glass bottle or jar with narrow mouth• Lighter (preferably with a long neck) or matchProcedure:1. Ask your parents to help you hard boil an egg.2. Let the egg cool, then carefully peel its shell off.3. Insert a crumpled piece of paper into the glass bottle.4. Ask your parents to drop a match or use a lighter to help you light the paper on fire.BE SURE TO DO THIS STEP OUTSIDE AND AT A SAFE DISTANCE FROM ANYTHING FLAMMABLE.5. With the fire safely contained in the bottom of the bottle, carefully set the egg on the top of the bottle.6. Watch as the egg is slowly sucked into the bottle!How do you get the egg out? Apply the same physics, just in reverse.1. Turn the bottle over so the egg is in the spout.2. Holding the bottle upside down, blow air (or have an adult do this step) into the bottle.3. The air you blow into the bottle will go around the egg and begin to create higher pressure inside the bottle and push the egg back out.
EI Product Manager Michael Sheridan is a jack of all trades! An avid surfer and former international soccer competitor, this outdoor and sporting enthusiast also has a degree in Astrophysics from UCLA and eight years of product development experience in a variety of industries. Prior to helping build EI's science products and brain game lines, Michael developed everything from folding chairs to electric scooters and skateboards! READ MORE
Posted on May 26, 2020
Home's Cool Learning Activity: Gravity Demo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFxThjSZjmU&feature=emb_logo Home's Cool! While we're all working from home, the parents, former teachers, and play experts at EI are sharing some of their favorite educational activities to help keep your family learning and growing. Check out this idea from Michael Sheridan, one of our Product Managers!Ages: 4-12Grades: pre-K-6Supplies:• Cardboard box• 2 Similar-sized objects• Camera or phone with slow-motion video capabilitiesProcedure:1. Stand a cardboard box on end, with the open flaps facing you.2. Set up your slow-motion camera to record the objects falling.3. Using one hand to support the flap, place both objects on one flap of the cardboard box and make sure they are not moving.4. Start recording on the slow-motion camera.5. Drop the flap on the cardboard box.6. Watch the video of the objects falling. Are they falling at the same speed? Or is one object falling faster than the other? Try dropping other objects! Do you notice any relationship between the shape and how the object falls? How about the size? Or weight?Explanation:The force of gravity is all around us. We experience it every day on Earth, whether or not we think about it. Sir Isaac Newton was the first to develop a mathematical explanation for gravity, which includes the importance of mass and distance. If an object has a lot of mass (is very heavy) then it will impose a larger gravitational force than other, smaller objects experience.When we drop two objects like the ping pong ball and tangerine in the video, they fall to the ground because the force of gravity is pulling them toward the center of the Earth. This gravitational force applies to everything on Earth, from an apple growing on a tree to a car parked on the street, and even planes in the sky.Now it’s time to experiment with dropping different objects! Be sure you aren’t dropping anything that might break. As mentioned in the video, this experiment is ignoring the effects of air resistance. Since we are in our homes and not a science lab, we can see how gravity affects all objects, but we can also see how the shape of an object changes the air resistance it feels as it falls to the ground.For this experiment, we are focusing on Newton’s Second Law, or F = ma.This law says the force an object feels (in this case, the force of gravity from Earth) equals the mass of that object (how heavy it is) multiplied by the acceleration it experiences. Everything on Earth feels the same acceleration toward the center of the Earth.So, what happens if we drop a ping pong ball and a baseball? A baseball weighs about 145 grams but a ping pong ball weighs about 3 grams. The acceleration is the same since both objects are on Earth, so the force the baseball feels is about 50 times as large as the force the ping pong ball feels (because it weighs almost 50 times as much).Why does it look like they reach the ground at the same time? The reason is inertia. Inertia is resistance to acceleration and depends on how much something weighs. If something weighs more, it won’t accelerate as fast. That’s why the ping pong ball starts to fall faster than the baseball.If we repeat this experiment with different-shaped objects, we can see the effects of air resistance. Try this out a piece of paper and a ball. The ball is round so the air can move around it easily, but the paper is a large rectangle, making it difficult for the air to go around it. The air resistance slows down the acceleration of the paper toward the ground, which is why it moves back and forth and reaches the ground after the ball.EI Product Manager Michael Sheridan is a jack of all trades! An avid surfer and former international soccer competitor, this outdoor and sporting enthusiast also has a degree in Astrophysics from UCLA and eight years of product development experience in a variety of industries. Prior to helping build EI's science products and brain game lines, Michael developed everything from folding chairs to electric scooters and skateboards!
READ MORE
Home's Cool Learning Activity: Gravity Demo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFxThjSZjmU&feature=emb_logo Home's Cool! While we're all working from home, the parents, former teachers, and play experts at EI are sharing some of their favorite educational activities to help keep your family learning and growing. Check out this idea from Michael Sheridan, one of our Product Managers!Ages: 4-12Grades: pre-K-6Supplies:• Cardboard box• 2 Similar-sized objects• Camera or phone with slow-motion video capabilitiesProcedure:1. Stand a cardboard box on end, with the open flaps facing you.2. Set up your slow-motion camera to record the objects falling.3. Using one hand to support the flap, place both objects on one flap of the cardboard box and make sure they are not moving.4. Start recording on the slow-motion camera.5. Drop the flap on the cardboard box.6. Watch the video of the objects falling. Are they falling at the same speed? Or is one object falling faster than the other? Try dropping other objects! Do you notice any relationship between the shape and how the object falls? How about the size? Or weight?Explanation:The force of gravity is all around us. We experience it every day on Earth, whether or not we think about it. Sir Isaac Newton was the first to develop a mathematical explanation for gravity, which includes the importance of mass and distance. If an object has a lot of mass (is very heavy) then it will impose a larger gravitational force than other, smaller objects experience.When we drop two objects like the ping pong ball and tangerine in the video, they fall to the ground because the force of gravity is pulling them toward the center of the Earth. This gravitational force applies to everything on Earth, from an apple growing on a tree to a car parked on the street, and even planes in the sky.Now it’s time to experiment with dropping different objects! Be sure you aren’t dropping anything that might break. As mentioned in the video, this experiment is ignoring the effects of air resistance. Since we are in our homes and not a science lab, we can see how gravity affects all objects, but we can also see how the shape of an object changes the air resistance it feels as it falls to the ground.For this experiment, we are focusing on Newton’s Second Law, or F = ma.This law says the force an object feels (in this case, the force of gravity from Earth) equals the mass of that object (how heavy it is) multiplied by the acceleration it experiences. Everything on Earth feels the same acceleration toward the center of the Earth.So, what happens if we drop a ping pong ball and a baseball? A baseball weighs about 145 grams but a ping pong ball weighs about 3 grams. The acceleration is the same since both objects are on Earth, so the force the baseball feels is about 50 times as large as the force the ping pong ball feels (because it weighs almost 50 times as much).Why does it look like they reach the ground at the same time? The reason is inertia. Inertia is resistance to acceleration and depends on how much something weighs. If something weighs more, it won’t accelerate as fast. That’s why the ping pong ball starts to fall faster than the baseball.If we repeat this experiment with different-shaped objects, we can see the effects of air resistance. Try this out a piece of paper and a ball. The ball is round so the air can move around it easily, but the paper is a large rectangle, making it difficult for the air to go around it. The air resistance slows down the acceleration of the paper toward the ground, which is why it moves back and forth and reaches the ground after the ball.
EI Product Manager Michael Sheridan is a jack of all trades! An avid surfer and former international soccer competitor, this outdoor and sporting enthusiast also has a degree in Astrophysics from UCLA and eight years of product development experience in a variety of industries. Prior to helping build EI's science products and brain game lines, Michael developed everything from folding chairs to electric scooters and skateboards! READ MORE
