Bernoulli's Dancing Balloons

This is one of my favorite experiments for all ages. The kids at Khalsa-Camden did this last Fall and had a ball (literally). It is a wonderful experiment to show the relationship (that the famous scientist Bernoulli explained between) between velocity and pressure, using balloons, fans, and beach balls. This experiment is best done outside on a still day with no wind. Here's what you need to get started:

• a floor fan that can pivot vertically to horizontally, so that it can be positioned to blow upward (while leaving some airspace under the fan).
• balloons (already blown up).
• beach balls of all sizes.

Have your kids hypothesize about what they think will happen to the balloons if you turn the fan on (blowing upward) and let go of the balloons over the blowing air. Do the same with the beach balls.

What you should find is that once you let go of the balloons or beach balls, they will travel upwards in the air stream. Most kids will expect the balloons or balls to fly everywhere and for the them to fall back down to the ground. However, once the balloons and balls travel high enough in the air stream, they will appear to "dance" in the air and not fall down or fly outward away from the air stream. The reason they stay where they are is because the faster air blowing upward from the fan is creating an area of lower pressure than the surrounding air. The balloons and balls are "trapped" in the low-pressure area and will only come down when the fan is turned off or if a gusty wind pushing them along.

The kids will have the most fun when you place several balloons over the fan rather than just one. Try it at home and let me know if it worked for you!

Venus Transit Tuesday, June 5th

Don't forget to head down to Flandrau Science Center at the UA campus this Tuesday night for the Venus transit! This means that Venus will be passing in front of the Sun. Much like a solar eclipse, where the moon comes between Earth and the Sun, Venus will be passing across the face of the Sun in the same manner. The difference is that Venus will appear much smaller than the moon because of its distance from the Earth. Admission is free and they'll have solar telescopes available for viewing, as well as science demonstrations and other fun activities. Check out the Flandrau website for more info!

http://www.flandrau.org/

Here is a video NASA produced on YouTube about the Venus transit:

Solar Eclipse

We took some photographs of the solar eclipse that happened on Sunday at sunset here in Tucson. If you weren't lucky enough to catch it, or if you live somewhere where it couldn't be seen, here are a couple neat photographs. We took these through a small solar-filter scope. Our neighbors provided the best view through their 10" telescope with a solar filter on it! The first photo was taken shortly after the eclipse started. The second photo is close to the full eclipse, which occurred around 6:40 pm MST.

Bubble Geometry

Steve Spangler is one of my favorite "fun" scientists. He does a segment on fun science experiments for the Denver 9 news. I wanted to share one of his experiments that I'm going to do with my preschool group next week. But first a preface...

I am used to using bubbles as a perfect segue to teaching kids of any age about surface tension and atmospheric pressure. No matter how hard they try and no matter what kinds of wands they use, the resulting bubble is always a perfect sphere! But in this experiment, Steve Spangler shows us how to make cubed bubbles. I never thought it possible until I watched his video. This is something you can do at home, and I plan to make my apparatus out of straws and balls of clay. I think Tinker Toys would also work great for this, if you have them. I'll give you an update on what materials I use after I experiment with it a bit. Meanwhile, check out this cool video from Steve Spangler's page!

"Cracking the Egg Sprinkler Mystery" on NPR's Science Friday!

While I was listening to Science Friday on the radio today, I was most intrigued by a small excerpt they included at the end about an experiment that sounded like fun! Apparently, this experiment was fueled by a scientist at BYU, who got the idea from a former professor, who got the idea from an old high school teacher, and so on and so on. You get the picture. Who knows how far all these fun experiments go back in time? No matter. The point is, they're still fun and they're timeless.

The gist of the experiment is simple, and anyone can do it, even your preschooler. You pour milk out into a puddle on your kitchen counter. Spin a hardboiled egg in the milk and watch the science unfold. The milk will literally crawl up the side of the egg and then spray out from the egg's "equator," like a miniature sprinkler system! And the mystery behind the science? Well, it's really no mystery at all if you're familiar with a man named Bernoulli. Bernoulli developed my favorite equation in the whole, wide world, which relates velocity with pressure. The higher the velocity of air or liquid, the lower the pressure. Incidentally, hydrology-minded people like myself use this equation indirectly every day, because Darcy's Law-- an equation that describes the movement of groundwater-- was derived from Bernoulli's Principle.

You can see Bernoulli's Principle in action using a hardboiled egg and various other objects on the Science Friday video at:

http://www.sciencefriday.com/video/05/04/2012/cracking-the-egg-sprinkler-mystery.html

Welcome to Weird Science!

Everywhere I go, I see science at work. Whether I'm flying in an airplane, driving through the desert across the Colorado River canals, or popping popcorn over the stove, I'm thinking about how science is part of our everyday lives. I am continuously pondering how to use these often-overlooked but incredible engineering miracles and natural processes as a base for enriching and fun science activities for kids. When I started to write down all these ideas and began testing them out on the kids at my oldest son's school, the Weird Science program was born!

Weird Science is an exploratory and inquiry-based extracurricular science program. We specialize in pre-K through 4th-grade students. Young minds are naturally inquisitive about the world around them and thirsty for knowledge. As a result, these students make fantastic scientists, and the inquiry approach is cultivated easily at this age. Our program provides 5 - 9 year olds with the knowledge and skills to be competent explorers of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) concepts and to envision themselves as future STEM professionals.

Weird Science offers a variety of STEM investigations of favorite childhood pastimes, such as paper airplanes, balloons, magnets, and making bubbles, as well as new topics such as biofuels and more. We expect the participation by young learners to generate enthusiasm and motivation for science and science careers. Above all, this program changes attitudes about the requirements for becoming a scientist and perceptions about who can be a scientist.

Participants will develop 1) increased interest in and appreciation for STEM, 2) new and demonstrable skills in thinking and experimenting in a scientifically valid way, applying engineering, math or technology principals to solve problems, and communicating results, 3) increased self-confidence in STEM abilities aligned with the child's ability to do inquiry and problem solving, and 4) awareness of the path to become a scientist or engineer and the roles they play in society.