Månad: november 2023

Play with the Christmas lights.

Material

• candles
• matches
• pitcher,
• vinegar
• bicarbonate (baking soda)

Instructions

• Step 1: Light the candle. Pour a few decilitres of vinegar into the jug.
• Step 2: Add a few teaspoons of baking soda and stir.
• Step 3: Gently tilt the jug towards the candle, without letting the liquid out. Do you manage to extinguish the candle?

What happened?

When you add the soda to the vinegar, a chemical reaction happens. The reaction forms water and carbon dioxide gas. The gas is heavier than air and sinks downwards. We can’t see the gas, which makes it look magical. When you tilt the jug towards the light, some of the gas comes out, because the gas is heavier than air it pushes the air down and smothers the flame. Carbon dioxide gas is a product of combustion, therefore carbon dioxide gas does not burn, but manages to extinguish the candle. Other gases, like oxygen, have a property of keeping the fire alive. For example, when you blow on a fire, it burns better because you add oxygen to the fire.

Air contains 21% oxygen and the air we breathe out contains 16% oxygen.

Idea from Heureka Experimentfabrik.

Step-1: Prepare some decorative stuff for your Rocket

Construct wings, a rocket or what you think is suitable out of construction paper to decorate the rocket with

Step-2: Preparing Rocket

We need a strong rocket, so I am going to layer it up with another cup.

Just cut the edge of the cup and insert it in another cup to make two layers.

Take a paper cup and put two holes by inserting a needle one point of the cups side to the opposite side of the cup. Such that the two holes remain quite opposite to each other.

Make sure you are keeping these holes near the brim of the paper cup mouth area. Repeat the same process of making hole on the other side of the cup. That means you are making four holes on the four sides of the paper cup.

Step-3: Inserting Bands

Pick two rubber bands and cut them at one point. Then, insert the line of rubber band into any two holes in opposite sides of the cup and tie its end part to keep a knot on both ends. Such that the inserted band will not slip out of the holes.

Repeat the same with the other line of band and keep tight knots into the other set of holes around the cup. Finally, after tying bands to the holes of the cup, you can see plus shape at the open side of paper cup mouth brim.

Step-4: Glue the Decorative Stuff

It is time to decorate our rocket launcher! Keep the paper cup which is referring to the rocket part, upside down.

Step-6: Flying Paper Cup Rocket

In this step, pick another paper cup and place it in reverse position such that the paper cup is in upside position. We are going to use this inverse paper cup as a base part or launcher for your space rocket.

Now place your rocket on top of the base cup but in upside down position. Make sure the base is also in inverse position. Then, give a gentle pressure just with the bear hands and push the rocket towards the base. After pushing it over the base part, release the pressure on the rocket part.

Science behind How Paper Cup Rocket Fly

What Newton’s Third Law of Motion says? It says; “every action has an equal and opposite reaction”. Satisfying the newton’s third law, the rocket part when you push downwards over the base part and release, it flies into the air. That means the amount of pressure you give on the rocket makes it fly with the same amount of energy and force upwards after releasing the pressure.

Idea taken from the GoScienceGirls-blog

Each student selects an animal and searches for information about it to compile an animal card:

Examine together the different characteristics of the animals by standing in a line or in a queue in order of size according to a certain characteristic.

Survey questions

• Height: Which of the animals is the tallest? Or the lowest?
• Lifespan: Which of the animals can live the longest? What is the middle value among the life expectancies (so-called median)?
• Speed: Which of the animals is the fastest? Or the slowest? What is the most common speed among animals (so-called typical value)?
• Conservation status: What is the most common conservation status?

Extra

Carry out additional research based on frequencies:
categorise the animals according to their lifespan into categories 1-5 years, 6-10 years, 11-15 years, etc.
Examine the frequencies in the different categories.

Suggestion

1. Produce pieces of paper in different colors on which you write the central concepts, such as median, type value, minimum value and maximum value. Hand out the notes next to the various survey questions to the right people to clarify the correct answer.
2. You can also take pictures of the different trails you create, so that the examples can be visually examined afterwards as well.

Idea from Lumatikka’s material.

• Create a circle on the floor and divide it in half into two parts – A and B. Ten children are allowed to move freely within the circle to the beat of the music. When the music is turned off, check how many children are on the A side and how many are on the B side. That way you get two ten buddies!
• Ten children stand on the A side of the circle. The teacher gives a number between 0 and 10. The children move so that x children go to the B-side. The children then count how many children were left on the A side. The result is a pair of ten buddies.

Idea from Lumatikka’s material.

• Half of the pupils stand in a line in the yard or in the gymnasium and create a series of different body positions.
• The other half of the students continue the line by creating a new, similar series.
• The task can be made more difficult by asking about the length of the series or by asking participants to create a series that has a certain length.

Idea from Lumatikka’s material.