BOOK 10 SEVENTH GENERATION SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS

BOOK 10 SEVENTH GENERATION SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS S E V E N T H G E N E R A T I O N C L U B

Table of Contents The fifteen science experiments found in the Seventh Generation Club Science Experiments Book 10 have been provided by Mad Science. Mad Science has a mission to spark the imagination and curiosity of children everywhere by providing them with fun, interactive and educational activities that instill a clear understanding of what science is all about and how it affects the world around them. Mad Science offers a variety of programs available in British Columbia including school assemblies with engaging science shows, age appropriate school workshops, and science camps. All Mad Science programs meet British Columbia Integrated Resource Package (IRP) requirements, include preand post-activities, reliable instructions, professional lesson plans, equipment, and the programs include language arts and math extension activities. For more information on how to host a Mad Science program at your school or event, please contact: Experiment 1: Experiment 2: Experiment 3: Experiment 4: Experiment 5: Experiment 6: Experiment 7: Experiment 8: Experiment 9: Experiment 10: Experiment 11: Experiment 12: Experiment 13: Experiment 14: Experiment 15: Working the Wheel and Axle Acid Base Chemistry Rusty Fruits and Vegetables Animal Couriers Backyard Biomes Bottle Breath Diving Lessons Fabulous Food Chain Heat Highways Magnetic Fields Forever Red Sky, Blue Sky State of Freeze Stone Soup The Heart Circuit Topsy Turvy Twister Karen and Bob Witzel Mad Science Phone: 604 591-9115 Fax: 604 501-1193 email: vancouver@madsciencebc.com www.madscience.org/vancouver The Mad Science Group have made every reasonable effort to ensure that the experiments and activities in this booklet are safe as conducted as instructed, and cannot and do not assume any responsibility for any damage caused or sustained while performing any of the experiments or activities in this booklet. We strongly recommend adult supervision for young readers. Copyright 2009 FNSA

Working the Wheel & Axle Acid Base Chemistry The first bicycle had handlebars that you could steer, but no pedals. You had to move it forward with your feet! Small box (a shoebox) 2 wooden barbecue skewers or thin sticks 2 straws 4 small disposable plates Tape Place your box on a table with its bottom facing up. Your box has two long sides and two short sides. Place one straw on the box, about 1cm from the short side. Tape the straw in place. The ends of the straw should poke out on either side of the box. Tape the second straw to the other short end of the box in the same way. Fit one stick through each straw. The sticks should poke out past the straws. Poke the ends of the sticks through the middle of the plates. Tape the plates to the sticks so that when you turn your box over, it stands on the plates. The plates should spin easily when you turn the sticks. Turn your box over so that it stands on the plates. Push the box. What happens? You made a cart with a wheel and axle! The wheel and axle is a type of simple machine. Simple machines make work easier to do. The box rubs against the ground without the wheel and axle. We say it makes friction. Friction makes the box harder to push. This means you need to work harder. Many devices use wheels and axles to make work easier. How many devices can you think of that use this simple machine? Red cabbage Bowl Grater Strainer Plastic container 7 clear plastic cups Baking soda Vinegar Test liquids (tea, cola, milk, apple juice) Adult helper Ask your helper to grate some red cabbage into a bowl. Cover the cabbage with cold water and let it sit for 45 minutes. Strain juice into a plastic container. Pour the same amount of cabbage juice into three plastic cups. Add 1 teaspoon of baking soda to one cup. Add 1 teaspoon of vinegar to another cup. What colour is the juice in each cup? Pour the same amount of cabbage juice into four plastic cups. Add 1 teaspoon of each drink into a separate cup. Compare the colour of the juice with the first three cups. What do you notice? You made an acid-base indicator! Red cabbage juice can tell if a chemical is an acid or a base. It is red in acids. It is blue in bases. Baking soda is a base. Vinegar is an acid. The drinks that you tested may be acids or bases. You can see what they are by the colour of the juice in their cup! One of the first acid-base indicators was litmus. Litmus comes from lichen, a plant that grows on rocks.

Rusty Fruits & Vegetables Animal Couriers We need to preserve fruits to store them for a long time. One of the first ways to preserve fruits was to dry them in the sun. Apple Potato Knife Lemon juice 2 plates Adult helper Ask your adult helper to cut an apple and a potato in half. Put one half of the apple and the potato on a plate. Coat the other half of the apple and potato with lemon juice and put them on another plate. Leave the plates on the counter for 20 minutes. What do you see? Your food oxidized! Some fruit and vegetables react when exposed to the air. They contain enzymes that leak out when cut. These enzymes react with oxygen in the air to form rust. We say that the food browns. We can stop food from browning by keeping the enzyme away from the air. We can remove air from the food. We can cook the food to break down the enzyme. We can coat the food with acid to stop the enzyme. Lemon juice is an acid that stops the enzyme from working. Can you think of other acid foods that would work? Large fuzzy sock Magnifying glass Large paper Wear the sock over one of your shoes. Walk around a nature park with lots of flowers or grassy plants. Remove the sock and turn it inside out. This keeps everything you collected inside your sock. Unfold the sock over a large piece of paper. Look at the sock with a magnifying glass. Can you tell what plants you touched with your sock? Your sock acts like an animal s skin. Plants cannot move. They need animals to carry their seeds for them. You may find seeds, burrs, grass, or twigs on your sock. Plants grow seeds that are light or sticky. The seeds stick to an animal in one place, and then fall off in another. Animals eat plants to survive. Plants use animals to spread their seeds! A man created Velcro by making a material with hooks and loops just like plant burrs. He thought of this after seeing burrs stuck to his dog after walking in the woods.

Backyard Biomes Bottle Breath Clear plastic cup Gravel Soil Grass seeds Sharpened pencil Resealable sandwich bag Empty pop bottle (2 litre) Large bucket (larger than the bottle) Plastic tubing like the hose used in fish tanks (longer than the bottle) 2 rubber bands (to go around the bottle) Some friends The word biome comes from two Greek words. Bios- means life and oma means group. A biome is a group that lives together. Fill the cup ¼ full of gravel. Put soil on top of the gravel until the cup is ¾ full. Add enough water to soak the gravel. Sprinkle a few seeds on top of the soil. Use the tip of the pencil to push the seeds under the surface of the soil. Use your fingers to cover the soil over the holes. Put the bag over the soil. Try to tuck its edges under the soil against the walls of the cup. Place the bag in a sunny spot and let it sit for a week. What do you observe? You created a mini biome! A biome is a large area with its own weather, plants, and animals. There are biomes on land and in water. Your biome may have small animals like bugs or worms. It has warm weather because it sits in a sunny spot. You may see water droplets on the sides of the bag. This is like rain. The plants that grow in your biome can live with your biome s weather. Be nice to nature: Return your biome back where you found it after a week. Find a safe place to work outdoors. Fill the bucket halfway with water. Fill the pop bottle completely with water. Cover the mouth of the bottle with your hand and turn the bottle upside-down. Put the bottle upside-down into the bucket without letting go of the covered part until after the mouth is in the water. Work with the mouth of the bottle underwater. Fit one end of the tubing into the bottle making sure the other end sticks out of the bucket. Take a deep breath and blow into the plastic tubing with one breath. Could you empty the bottle? Use an elastic band to mark the level of remaining water inside the bottle. Refill the bottle with water and have your friends try. You measured the air in your lungs! Air takes up space, just like water, sand or other objects do. You used the air in your lungs to push water out of the bottle. The air you can hold in your lungs is your lung capacity. Compare the size of the bottle to your chest. Do you have more or less air in your lungs? Dolphins and whales have lungs! They breathe air through a blowhole at the top of their head.

Diving Lessons Fabulous Food Chain The diving bell spider, Argyroneta aquatica, lives underwater by making a diving bell with its spider silk and attaching it to an underwater plant. Empty pop bottle with cap (2 litres) Large bucket (deeper than the bottle) Plastic tubing (longer than the bottle) Rock or a large weight of some kind Masking tape String Tie a string around your rock (or weight). Tie the other end of the string to the mouth of the bottle. The rock should hang about 3 centimetres below the centre of the bottle opening. Tape the string in place. Push one end of the tubing to the bottom of the bottle. Bend the remaining tubing so that it lies against the outside of the bottle. Make sure that air can still get through the tube. Tape the tube near the top and near the bottom of the bottle. This is your diving bell. Go outdoors and fill your bucket with water. Block the end of the tube with your thumb and put your diving bell in the bucket. The diving bell will float with its weight hanging down. Take your thumb off the end of the tube while it is underwater. What does the diving bell do? Blow into the tube. What does the diving bell do? Blow gently into the tube and try to make the bell hover over the bottom of the bucket. Coloured construction paper (yellow, green, red, blue) Coloured yarn Crayons or markers Scissors Tape or glue Books about ecosystems Make a list of all the plants and animals in an ecosystem. For example, you can choose a forest, prairie, pond, or beach. Make a list of what each animal eats. For example, squirrels in the forest eat nuts from plants. Owls eat squirrels. Cut the pieces of construction paper into cards. Write all the plant names from your list on the green cards, the animal names that eat plants on the yellow cards, the animal names that eat other animals on the red cards, and the names of anything remaining on your list on the blue cards. Arrange the pieces in the order of what they eat. For example, put the owl at the top. Put the squirrel under the owl. Put the plant at the bottom. Cut the yarn into 15 centimetre lengths and tape one piece of yarn to each pair of cards that link together. Can you see how the plants and animals link together? Are some animals or plants linked to more than one card? Plants are often the first in a food chain line. They get their energy from the Sun and give their energy to animals that eat them. You made a diving bell! Your diving bell rises and sinks because of the air inside the bottle. Blowing into the bell adds air. Air is lighter than water. It makes the diving bell float. Unplugging the mouth of the tube lets water fill the bottle. It pushes the air out through the tube. The diving bell becomes heavy and sinks. You made a food web! It shows how plants and animals living in a community feed off one another. Each card shows us a plant or animal. Each card can link to one or more cards. A food chain shows just one link of a food web. You can call food webs energy webs. All living things need energy. They get this from the food that they eat. In a forest for example, a tree gets its energy to grow from the sun. Small animals, like squirrels, get their energy by eating the nuts from the trees, and the owls that live in the forest get their energy by eating squirrels. Everything is connected!

Heat Highways Magnetic Fields Forever Silver is the best heat conductor of all metals! 3 toothpicks Paper Scissors Tape Coloured pencils Metal jar lid Plastic container lid Wooden or cork coaster Plastic knife Butter (margarine or shortening can also work) Large bowl or bucket Hot tap water Adult helper Watch or clock Cut out three pieces of paper all the same size, about four by two centimetres. Tape each piece of paper to a toothpick to make three flags. Cut three pieces of butter so that they are all about the same size. Place one piece of butter on the metal jar lid, one piece on the plastic lid, and one on the wooden disk. Put a flag into each of the pieces. Ask an adult to help you put hot water into the large bowl or bucket. Ask your helper to float the three flag platforms in the water. Use a watch to time how long it takes for each piece of butter to melt and for each flag to fall over. Box of 100 uncoated paper clips Magnet labelled with the north (N) and south (S) poles Make a pile of paper clips on a table. Touch the south pole end of the magnet to the paperclips. Lift up the magnet. What happens? Touch the north pole end of the magnet to the paperclips. Lift up the magnet. What happens? Touch the side of the magnet to the paperclips. Lift up the magnet. What happens? A magnet is a special metal. Magnets attract things made of steel or iron, like paper clips. Magnets have north and south poles. A magnet s north and south poles have a space between them. The space contains a magnetic field. A magnetic field is like a big bubble around a magnet. It starts at the magnet s north pole and loops around to the south pole. The magnet is strongest at its poles. The magnet attracted the paper clips when you touched its poles, the ends of the magnet, to the pile. The attracted paper clips form a loop when you dip the side of the magnet into the pile. This loop shows what the magnetic field looks like. The Earth is a big magnet. The Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) flows along the Earth s magnetic field! You did a conductivity test! You tested the metal, plastic, and wood to see how well they let energy pass through. A good conductor lets energy pass through it. Heat is a type of energy. Heat warms up objects. Metal is a good conductor. It moves heat from the hot water quickly. Butter melts when heated. The butter on the metal lid melts quickly from the heat. Wood is not a good conductor. The butter on the wood does not heat up quickly. It melts last.

Red Sky, Blue Sky State of Freeze Sir Isaac Newton, a British scientist, was the first to split white light into the colours of the rainbow! Clear, straight-side plastic drinking cup Milk Teaspoon Flashlight Dark room White piece of cardstock paper Fill cup about 2/3 full of water. Darken the room. Place the cup on one end of the paper. Shine the flashlight through the cup at the top of the water so that a shadow falls on the paper. Look at the edge of the shadow on the paper. What colours do you see? Add ½ teaspoon of milk and stir. Hold the flashlight so that light shines through the cup to the side. Look at the water. What colour do you see? Hold the flashlight so that light shines through the cup towards you. Look at the water. What colour do you see? You made colours from white light! Light travels in straight lines. Its direction changes when it bounces into something. Particles of smoke and dust in the air make light bounce. We say that they refract light. Different colours of light refract in many ways. Blue light refracts less than red light. We can place colours in order by their refractions. The order from least to most is blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. This is the same order as the rainbow colours! The rainbow colours combine to make white light. Your flashlight shines white light. You made the water refract the white light in the flashlight into the rainbow colours. Adding milk to the water is like adding particles to the air. The flashlight is like light from the sun. The milk refracts the light. You see a blue colour when the flashlight shines across the water. This is like seeing a blue sky during the day. You see an orange-red colour when the flashlight shines through the water at you. This is like seeing a red sky at sunrise or sunset. Can of frozen juice Pitcher Large spoon 4 paper cups Wooden craft sticks Wash your hands before you start this experiment. Spoon frozen juice from its can into a large pitcher. Touch the frozen juice. How does it feel? Add water according to the package directions to make juice. Touch the watered juice. How does it feel? Fill the paper cups about 2/3 of the way with juice. Put a craft stick into the liquid in each paper cup. Put the cups of juice into the freezer. Check the cups after two hours. Pull gently on the stick. Does it come out of the cup easily or is it stuck in the juice? Put the cups back in the freezer. Check the cups after another two hours. Is the stick frozen in the juice? Peel off the paper cups once the juice is frozen. Share your frozen juice bars with a friend! You made a state change! Everything in our world can be in any of three states. These are solid, liquid, and gas. Solid things feel hard to the touch. Liquid things feel wet. We may not feel gas things. Frozen juice is in a solid state. Adding water melts the juice and changes it to a liquid state. Putting the juice into the freezer changes it back to a solid state. An 11 year old boy named Frank Epperson made the first popsicle! He called it the Epsicle and it was renamed the popsicle.

Stone Soup The Heart Circuit Clear plastic bottle with a cap Sand Gravel (or small rocks) Chalk powder (or plaster of paris) Scissors Paper coffee filter Tablespoon Plastic cup (150 millilitres) 2 large pots Watch or clock to measure seconds Towel Helper Sedimentary layers form only when the area is underwater. Mountains made with sedimentary rock may be ancient oceans that are now dried up! Cut a small hole about the size of the mouth of your bottle in the bottom of the coffee filter. Put the coffee filter into the opening of the bottle with the hole inside the mouth this is your funnel. Add 5 tablespoons of sand to the bottle. Add 5 tablespoons of gravel to the bottle. Add 5 tablespoons of chalk powder (or plaster of paris) to your bottle. Fill your bottle half full of water. Put the cap on your bottle and shake it for 10 seconds. Place it on the table and wait 1 minute. Observe the contents in your bottle. How do they sink in the water? You made a sedimentary layer! We say tiny solid objects that sink are sediment. The gravel, sand, and chalk are sediment. Shaking the bottle mixes them up. The sediment sinks when you stop shaking it. Heavy sediment sinks faster than light ones. The gravel sinks first. They form a layer at the bottom of your bottle. The sand settles on top of them. Chalk powder settles on top of the sand. Look at the sides of a river. You may see layers of sediment there as well! Place both pots on a table. Fill one pot with water. Use the cup to scoop water from one pot to the other. Have your helper count the number of scoops you make in 1 minute. Scoop the water back into the first pot again if you fill the second one with water within the minute with time remaining. Change roles with your helper. Count the number of scoops in 1 minute. Wipe up spilled water with the towel. You re pumping like a heart! You can pump as fast as the heart if you made 70 scoops in 1 minute. That s more than one scoop per second! Your heart pumps blood into arteries. The blood comes back to the heart in veins. An adult heart pumps about 150 millilitres of blood into the arteries around 70 times every minute. It is a very strong muscle. Your arm muscles get tired when they work as hard as your heart muscle. The special muscle your heart is made of is called cardiac muscle. It can keep pumping for your whole lifetime without getting tired Canadian engineer John Hopps created the pacemaker for people with damaged hearts. This device sends signals to tell the heart when to beat!

Topsy Turvy Twister The Fujita- Pearson Scale measures the intensity of a tornado. F0, called a gale tornado, may blow some chimneys over. F6, called an inconceivable tornado, would pick up cars and send them flying like a missile! 2 bottles, clear plastic, with labels removed (1 litre) Rubber washer Duct tape Food colouring Glitter (optional) Fill one bottle about ¾ full with water. Add 10 drops of food colouring and a sprinkle of glitter (this is optional). Place the washer over the mouth of the bottle. Place the second bottle upside down on top of the washer (mouths together). Wrap duct tape firmly around the necks of both bottle mouths. Press the duct tape into the neck of the bottle to stop leaks from forming. Carefully flip the bottles over so that the water-filled bottle is on top. Place them on a flat surface. Hold the top bottle and swirl it in a circle. What happens to the water as it leaves the top bottle? Look at the water near the center of the bottle. What do you see? Flip the bottles and swirl the top bottle faster. What happens? Flip the bottles and swirl the top bottle slower? What happens? You made a tornado vortex! The swirling funnel shape inside a tornado is its vortex. This shape forms when cold dry air mixes with warm, moist air. This mixture creates a big wind and thick, black thunderclouds. The warm air moves in an upward spiral. Gusts of water vapour follow the air. The tornado s twisting, funnel-shaped cloud forms when the air cools. In your model tornado, gravity pulls the water vortex down. In a real tornado, the air and water vortex move up. Seventh Generation Club Mission Statement To create a club where First Nations youth can envision their future by recognizing their own energy, the culture of their people, and the teamwork needed to succeed by giving them opportunities to make healthy life choices, participate in their community, and to meet the challenges of life. The Seventh Generation Club would like to thank the following partners: Administration and coordination is provided by the First Nations Schools Association www.seventhgenerationclub.com

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