Tag: Valentine’s Day

The History Behind Valentine’s Day and Why We Celebrate it!


The History Behind Valentine’s Day!

The Roman’s had a festival called The Feast of Lupercalia that was celebrated in the middle of February.

An Emperor named Claudius II executed two men with the same name, Valentine, in different years, on the same day February 14th.

The first Valentine was a Roman Priest and was caught and thrown in prison for marrying. Later he was executed.

The second Valentine was a Temple Priest who helped Christians marry.

They were honored by the Catholic Church in which became Valentine’s Day on February 14th.

                                                                                                                           

 The Reason We Celebrate Valentine’s Day!

Since legend has it that both the Valentines were romantic, and both became Saints, St. Valentine’s Day became known to be

the romantic holiday for couples, a time to celebrate romance and love.

 

Even children love making Valentine’s Day cards.

In this video it shows children and parents how to make some neat Valentine’s Day cards of their own at home!

Sources: Pixabay
Sources: Google.com
Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_kIA9Xz5aw

Sweeten Up Your Valentine’s Day with FUN Science!

Today, we’re celebrating the holiday of love with a  “hearty” dose of FUN science! Get ready to take a walk on the sweet side & discover if you’ve got the beat!

Don’t forget to scroll to the bottom of the post to find FUN  Valentine’s Day At-Home Science Experiments!

As always, We’d LOVE to hear how you spent your Valentine’s Day with Science! Click here to email us pictures & more!

To millions of American’s, Valentine’s Day means chocolate hearts, flowers & heart balloons, conversation hearts & even, heart cards. Matters of the heart have baffled humans since the dawn of time, with sonnets & entire books devoted to the meaning of love. But what about our actual hearts?

As we prepare to be immersed in heart-shaped imagery in the coming weeks, we wanted to investigate the mysteries of that vital organ that makes us tick – the human heart! It’s a fact that you can’t live or love without it & this month, we’re getting to the heart of the matter. Prepare to be amazed as we uncover some fascinating facts about our personal pumping machine! 

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Who says the kids at MIT only learn about quarks, electrons, and semiconductors? Turns out that for the past 6 years, a popular club at the prestigious school has celebrated the science of chocolate! 

In the spirit of the upcoming holiday, Valentine’s Day, we’re taking a walk on the sweet-side of science to find some decadent facts straight from MIT’s Laboratory for Chocolate Science.  Plus – check out the end for a delicious how-to video from the MIT Scientists with all you need to know for tea-infused chocolate truffles!

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Power of the Pulse! 

The heart. It’s amazing! Our heart is the key organ of our lives, pumping oxygen-rich blood to every part of our body. The rhythmic throbbing of your heart is called your pulse. Get Pumped as you explore the incredible power of the pulse & what makes us tick with this FUN at home experiment!

Click Here to Get Started & Download the How-To Guide!

Pumping Heart Model

The heart has long been the symbol of poetic love and a widely used symbol on Valentine’s Day. Our blood picks up the oxygen from our lungs. Our blood carries the oxygen all through our bodies and picks up the CO2 that we won’t use. Then it’s released from our blood into our lungs for us to breathe out.

Our heart is a huge muscle that pumps our blood all through our bodies. This model shows how the heart muscle can pump blood.You can make this model of a heart with your child to demonstrate how blood is pumped around the body. Why does our blood only pump in one direction? (answer: the valves close off and do not allow the blood back into the chamber it just came from.) You can see how to make a model heart here: http://www.smm.org/heart/lessons/lesson5a.htm.

Dancing Hearts

Good ‘ol baking soda and vinegar! These two substances react to form Carbon Dioxide. A solid (Baking Soda, or Sodium Bicarbonate) and a liquid (Vinegar, or Acetic Acid) react to form a gas!

Fill a tall, clear glass half full of water. Let your child drop in 2 or 3 little candy valentine hearts (conversation hearts). Observe the hearts. Now stir in a Tb of Baking Soda (sodium bicarbonate). Observe the hearts. Do you see any bubbles forming along the edges? Pour in a little Vinegar (acetic acid). Observe the hearts. Do you see any bubbles forming along the edges? Wait for a moment and you will see the bubbles form along the edges of the hearts…so many bubbles that they buoy up the heart so that it rises to the top of the water. The hearts will rise and fall. Why do the hearts fall? Why do they rise again?

Love Potion

Another round of Baking Soda and Vinegar to create a Carbon Dioxide explosion! You’ve probably all done this reaction at home, but put this Valentine’s Day twist on it for a lot of chemistry fun!

Pour a Tb of Baking Soda (Love Powder) into a tall, clear glass. We used a vinaigrette cruet because it looked more like a potion bottle. Drop in 2 drops of red food coloring. Have your child drop in one or two valentine candies (just for fun- they don’t effect the reaction). Now pour a tiny bit of vinegar (Valentine’s Day juice) into the bottle and swirl it all around quickly. Watch the liquid turn red and dissolve the solid baking soda. It will bubble slightly. Now pour a bit more vinegar into the bottle and observe the power of the Love Potion! Be sure to do this fun little experiment over the sink. 

Find even more science experiments that are perfect for Valentine’s Day! You can perform a color change reaction, make a chemical “beating heart”, prepare a special Valentine gift, and more!


Add Some Science To Your Valentine’s Day- FUN and Simple Activities!

Love has a lot to do with chemistry, so if you’re looking to connect Valentine’s Day with chemistry, you’ve come to the right place.

Take a look at these FUN and simple experiments that relate to Valentine’s Day.

Crystal Heart Decoration:

This crystal heart only takes a couple of hours to grow & makes a pretty Valentine’s Day decoration!

 Materials Needed:

  • Borax
  • Water
  • Pipecleaner

Directions:

  1. Shape the pipecleaner like a heart. It’s fine to have a ‘stem’ at the bottom of the heart, since this will give you a way to suspend the heart in the crystal growing solution. You can always clip it later with scissors or wire cutters.
  2. Prepare the crystal growing solution by stirring borax into boiling hot water until it stops dissolving. You can tell you have enough borax if a little powder starts to accumulate in the bottom of the container.
  3. Add food coloring, if desired. Alternatively, if you want a colored heart you can simply use colored pipecleaners.
  4. Place your heart shape into a container. It’s best if the heart doesn’t touch the sides or bottom of the container, which you can achieve by hanging the heart from a pencil or butter knife. However, you’ll get decent results just setting the heart into the container.
  5. Pour the borax crystal solution into the container, being certain all of the heart is covered. Try to avoid getting any undissolved solid into this container.
  6. Allow the crystals to grow on the heart for several hours or overnight. When you are satisfied with the crystals on the heart, remove it from the crystal solution and allow it to dry. You can hang the heart as a decoration. The crystal heart may be stored wrapped in tissue paper.

Make Colored Flowers:

It’s easy to make your own colored flowers for Valentine’s Day, especially carnations and daisies, but there are a couple of tricks that help ensure great results. Here’s how you do it.

 

Materials Needed:

  • Fresh Flowers, preferably white – don’t use wilted flowers since they might not be able to absorb water well.  Good choices include daisies and carnations.
  • Food coloring
  • Warm water

Directions:

  1. Trim the stems of your flowers so they aren’t excessively long.
  2. Make a slanted cut at the base of the stem under water. The cut is slanted so that the stem won’t sit flat on the bottom of the container. A flat cut can prevent the flower from taking in water. Make the cut underwater to prevent air bubbles from forming in the tiny tubes at base of the stem, which would prevent water/color from being drawn up.
  3. Add food coloring to a glass. You’re looking at about 20-30 drops of food coloring per half cup of warm water. Warm water will be taken more readily than cold water.
  4. Set the damp stem of the flower in the colored water. The petals should become colored after a few hours. It may take as long as 24 hours, however, depending on the flower.
  5. You can set the colored flowers in plain water or flower preservative, but they will continue to drink water, changing the pattern of the color over time.

Getting Fancy

You can slit the stem up the middle and put each side in a different color to get bi-colored flowers. What do you think you will get if you put half of the stem in blue dye and half in yellow dye? What do you think will happen if you take a colored flower and put its stem in dye of a different color?

How It Works

A few different processes are involved in plant ‘drinking’ or transpiration. As water evaporates from flowers and leaves, the attractive force between water molecules called cohesion pulls more water along. Water is pulled up through tiny tubes (xylem) that run up a plant’s stem. Although gravity might want to pull the water back down toward the ground, water sticks to itself and these tubes. This capillary action keeps water in the xylem in much the same way as water stays in a straw when you suck water through it, except evaporation and biochemical reactions provide the initial upward pull.