HTHT own Jet stream Julie went to Woodland Heights Elementary School in Mooresville, NC to teach a after school enrichment program to students in grade K-5.
Today at Woodland Heights, our junior scientists set out to explore the wondrous world of matter! First students raced water molecule cars! Here we study the act of cohesion, or “liquid sticky.” We used a paper race track, a piece of wax paper, q-tips and food colored water. This is especially fun when you have access to a whole roll of wax paper and the length of a cafeteria, this way kids can race side by side!
Later we look at mixing a solid (baking soda) a liquid (vinegar) to create a gas (C02) Using a small cup that has a couple of Tbs of vinegar, our scientist used their strongest pinchers to drop our solid into the cups AND BAM!! C02 bubbles arise! Now because we encourage safe cleaning and learning, we mention to students that this is a safe, inexpensive way to clean sinks and drains. Junior scientists get to this on a larger scale and score points with mom for cleaning. 👍🏻👍🏻
Next, we made our famous space mud. We plan to mix three liquids to make a semi-solid. We start with a small cup of glue, followed by a few drops of our favorite food coloring. Then we add a liquid borax solution, and then we stir stir stir! The best part is we get to get our hands dirty! Putting our hands down in the cups we pull out our dripping mud. We roll it all around and squish out all the water forming a ball.
This is always a winning program exploring solids, liquids and gases.
