It is rocket science - the new Sublime Science Club

A while back we reviewed the e-book 'Don't Eat Your Own Slime' which was very cool, and since then I have become a presenter for Sublime Science, which is a dream job as it means getting my geek on and spreading the word that science is exciting while making things go bang, plus it's weekends so it doesn't take me away from my own little scientists for too long.

Today we trialled a great new addition to the Sublime Science repertoire - the shiny new Sublime Science Club.  For the price of a coffee a week you get access to e-versions of the 'Don't eat your own slime' book and 'The most incredible science experiment DVD ever', plus printable manuals, home decoration pack and certificates to help you get the most out of great new experiments uploaded monthly to the club page.

 The experiments have a different theme each month, this month it was 'radical rockets', which came with clear instructions videos and required only normal household items and junk from the recycling box.  Videos of experiments are available from sources such as YouTube, but what I really liked about these ones was the clear explanations of the science behind each experiment, plus suggestions of how to adapt the basic experiment to explore it further. 

Being able to look at what we would need before I showed the videos to the boys was helpful - for example we don't normally have disposable plastic water bottles so we saved some from a day out on Saturday. 

The boys were very excited when they recognised that Mad Marc's T-shirt was the same as the one I wear under my lab coat 'look, that man is mummy scientist too' was Toby's comment.  We do lots of experiments at home, but seeing them demonstrated on the screen somehow made it all seem more like a proper science project to them, not just mucking around with mummy. We also got to try out new ideas that we hadn't seen before, and the boys had great fun coming up with their own versions.


The mess was pretty limited, but being able to show a short video demonstration between experiments gave me a couple of minutes to clear away one thing and set up for the next, which gave a really nice pace to the morning.  The set ups were almost all things that the boys could manage for themselves with very little help, even at ages 3 and 5, which adds to the hands on fun.

When we finished I presented the boys with their official Radical Rockets Graduation Certificates which we can add to a project book that we will start for their science club experiments.  I think as a way of giving non-scientist parents and carers a toolbox for making science a regular, fun and creative part of the monthly line up of activities this club is a brilliant idea, and for the regular science explorers out there it's a way of expanding on tried and tested favourites and making an event of it.  The more families that get a chance to have fun with science, technology, engineering and maths the more chance we have of keeping kids interested in STEM subjects as they grow and choose careers.  We'll certainly be making rockets the Sublime Science way again.

 

Note:  I got my trial for free, but images and opinions are all my own.  Sublime Science offers a no quibble guarantee that you'll like it, so if you join and then don't like it you can cancel at any time.

10 minute experiment - Milky bubbles

Ollie asked to do some science experiments yesterday.  In addition to doing some experiments that I've given details of in older posts (such as playing with adding bicarbonate of soda to vinegar, planting beans in a jar and making shaving foam clouds) I thought this new experiment would be good fun.

All you need are a cup, a straw, milk and a couple of ingredients to add to it - we used a popular brand of blackcurrant squash and drinking chocolate powder.

The idea is to blow bubbles in plain milk and compare the result with what happens if you add different things to the milk. 

Toby didn't get the idea of blowing bubbles until the third experiment - the plain milk and blackcurrant squash milk both got drunk while he looked confused about why Ollie was getting bubbles and he wasn't.  After we cleared up from the blackcurrant phase and got fresh milk with a little drinking chocolate powder added Toby got the hang of it and blew plenty of bubbles for himself.

For each phase, you can introduce the basic scientific practice of making predictions and then testing them.  Simple questioning like 'we saw that you could blow bubbles in the milk, but they went away really quickly.  What do you think might happen if we add blackcurrant squash' gets kids thinking about cause and effect.  They will start to suggest further experiments you can do adding different ingredients, giving you an opportunity to help them think in terms of practicality and safety - 'yes it would be interesting to see if adding soap will make brilliant bubbles, but do you think your little brother might drink it?' in our case.

For really little ones like Toby, it's all about experiencing what happens when you do different things without predicting.  Even if they drink every sample, it is just as exciting doing a taste experiment.  For slightly older pre-schoolers like Ollie getting used to the idea of making predictions and trying things out is good fun.  Ollie enjoyed adding a picture to his science notebook of all the bubbles coming out of his cup. Keeping a little journal of experiments is a good way to play at being a scientist keeping notes and you can encourage detailed observation skills by getting children to draw what equipment they used and what happened.  Initially you can write down their description, trying to use their words and drawing them into thinking about what you did together.  As they get older they will be able to take over on labelling their diagrams and eventually writing it all, which you may want to support by using a writing frame.  These are really simple to make - just draw boxes on a page and give each one a heading e.g. 'What we used', 'what I thought would happen' and 'picture of what happened' initially.  Kids who are struggling or not ready for writing can draw diagrams under each heading which you could label for them.

 For older children, you could use this as a part of an investigation into bubbles generally, describing concepts such as surface tension and air pressure and how certain substances such as soap affect the surface tension of water.  The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has a nice detailed page with videos for older kids or for your own interest.

Health and safety bit: as usual, apply common sense.  You know best your own child's development stage and ability - if you think they're going to stick it straight up their nose, don't give them a straw.  I haven't tried this with dairy alternatives, but that would be an interesting experiment in itself.  I used blackcurrant squash and drinking chocolate in very small amounts, but because they're both high in sugar I wouldn't recommend adding them to your kids milk as a regular thing.  You can get sugar free versions but I suspect feeding sweeteners containing known carcinogens to our children is something that as a population we're going to look back on in the future with horror.