Clay the Rambling Homeschooling Dad

Friday is Science Day

Yepperz! Friday is Science Day!

We are going to discuss expansion and contraction of gases in a confined space. How do I make this interesting to a seven-year-old? It's really cool. Hey, I'm 40 and I still get a kick out of doing this in the winter!

1. Empty a 2-liter soda bottle. I prefer Diet Coke.
2. Put a pan with about 4 inches of water on to boil.
3. Get another pan with ice water ready.
4. When the water's boiling, remove it from the heat. I put it on one of those things that holds hot pots off the table to keep the table from burning. I think they're called trivets.
5. Take the cap off the empty Diet Coke (or whatever it was you drank) bottle.
6. Put it in the hot water for about 30 seconds. You want to heat the air inside the bottle.
7. Cap the bottle tightly.
8. Put the bottle in the ice water and watch it collapse.

When I did this, my daughter's eyes got bigger and bigger as the bottle got smaller and smaller. As a homeschool Dad, it's those "light-bulb" moments that just make my day. Well, today, we're going to go a step further. At a local grocery store, they hand out helium balloons to every kid that walks (or rides a stroller or cart) in. I got a couple of un-inflated balloons. Here's the procedure:

1. Prepare the water as illustrated above.
2. While the bottle is at room temperature, stretch a balloon over the top of the bottle.
3. Put the bottle in the hot water. What happens to the balloon?
4. Now put the bottle in cold water. What happens to the balloon?

This will also be part of her writing assignment: What happened to the balloon on the soda bottle in hot water? What happened to it in cold water? Why? I'm learning how to take one lesson and make it many. :) I think that's what a good homeschooler should be doing.

Remember: Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. Proverbs 22:6, NIV

posted by ClayMan @ 4:34 AM