Recent Comments

6 Weird Science Experiments

With just a few items nearly everyone can find at home, you can do amazing science experiments. Want to make a lava lamp? Just grab a little cooking oil, water and salt. How about writing with secret “ink” on a mirror? All it takes is dishwashing detergent, water and a cotton swab. Get set for fun and learn a little science?

science

Note: Be sure to ask for a parent’s help and permission before starting any experiment.


SWIMMING SPAGHETTI

Make spaghetti do tricks with this fun and fizzy experiment.

What You Need:

  • uncooked spaghetti
  • 1 cup of water
  • 2 teaspoons of baking soda
  • 5 teaspoons of vinegar
  • tall clear glass

What You Do:

Put water and baking soda in the glass. Stir until the baking soda is dissolved. Break spaghetti into 1-inch pieces. Put about 6 pieces in the glass. They will sink to the bottom. Add vinegar to the mixture in the glass. Observe what happens to the pieces of spaghetti. Add more vinegar as the action starts to slow down.

What’s Going On:

When baking soda and vinegar are mixed together, a chemical reaction occurs. It produces a gas called carbon dioxide, which forms lots of bubbles on top of the mixture and smaller bubbles at the bottom of the glass. These little bubbles stick to the spaghetti and make it float to the surface, just as you do when you sit on a swimming pool noodle! When the spaghetti reaches the surface, the bubbles pop and the spaghetti sinks to the bottom.


WRITE A SECRET MESSAGE

Write an invisible message on a mirror using a soapy solution and a cotton swab. The secret message will appear only in a foggy room.

What You Need:

  • liquid dishwashing detergent
  • cup of water
  • a few cotton swabs
  • hand mirror or bathroom mirror

What You Do:

Place a few drops of dishwashing detergent into the cup of water. stir to mix well. This is your secret message “ink”.

Dip a cotton swab into the soapy solution. Write a short message on the mirror. When the liquid dries, the message will be invisible. (If not, use a little less of the solution.)

When you take a hot shower or bath, do not get the mirror wet, but get the mirror close enough to the steam from the water so that it gets fogged up. Close the door so the steam stays in the bathroom.

Observe what happens. Can you read the message?

More fun: Write a message and wait until someone else takes a shower or bath. See how quickly they discover your secret.

What’s Going On :

The steam on the mirror is made up of water molecules. These tiny drops of water stick together on the mirror because of a force called surface tension. The liquid dishwashing detergent breaks the surface tension of the water. Wherever there is detergent, the water molecules are unable to form into droplets. The words written with the soapy solution stand out clearly against the foggy background of the mirror.


THE POWER OF ICE

Why do people put covers on their outside faucets in the winter? Why isn’t it a good idea to leave water in a garden hose during freezing temperatures? It’s the power of ice.

What You Need:

  • three small plastic drinking cups, one with a lid dish or pan big enough to hold all three
  • cups
  • water
  • freezer

What You’ll Do:

Fill all three cups with as much water as possible without overflowing. Put the lid on one.

Set all three cups on the dish and place in the freezer overnight.

Check to see what happened the next morning. Did the water stay the same size after it became ice?

Leave the frozen items in the freezer for a few days. Did you notice any changes?

What’s Going On:

When water freezes, it expands. When water is left in a garden hose during freezing temperatures, the force of the ice expanding can cause the hose to break open. The same thing can happen with the water pipes in your house. If the water freezes in the pipe, it can break the pipe open.


FISH IN A BOWL: MAKE A MOVIE

Fool your eyes with this experiment. Using a homemade thaumatrope (THAW-muh-troap), you can combine two pictures into a single image by quickly flipping the pictures back and forth.

 What You Need:

  • small piece of cardboard, about 2 inches by 3 inches
  • sharpened pencil or pen to make holes in cardboard
  • two pieces of string tape
  • two small pieces of paper

What You Do:

Cut out a small piece of cardboard and punch holes in each corner. On both sides, write a small “X” in the center of the cardboard.

Cut out two pieces of white paper that are a little smaller than the cardboard piece. Make sure the holes will not be covered up when the paper is placed over the cardboard.

On one piece of paper, draw a fish. On the other, draw a fishbowl. Be sure to draw the fishbowl larger than the fish.

Tape the picture of the fish on one side of the cardboard, so that the fish is directly over the “X”.

Tape the fishbowl on the other making sure the bowl is centered on the “X”.

Thread one piece of string through the two holes on one side. Thread the other piece of string through the two holes on the other side.

Twist the strings together on each side. Pull the strings as though you are trying to stretch a rubber band. This will make the cardboard twirl. Watch the pictures. Does it look like your fish is in the fishbowl?

More fun: Draw a picture of a bird and a birdcage or anything else you can imagine!

What’s Going On:

Your eye sees the image of the fish for a short time after it is gone. By that time, the picture of the fishbowl is in sight, and you seem to see both pictures at once. The same thing happens at the movies. If you look at a piece of movie film, you’ll see that it is a series of pictures separated by black spaces. These pictures with black spaces in between are flashed on the screen so fast that your eye cannot see the individual pictures or the black spaces.


MAKE A LAVA LAMP

Here’s an easy yet amazing way to make your own “lava lamp’.

What You Need:

  • cooking oil, such as vegetable oil
  • cold water (no ice)
  • salt water glass
  • food coloring

What You Do:

Fill the glass about three-quarters full of cold water. Stir in a few drops of food coloring. Can you guess what will happen when you add oil to the water? Will they mix together or separate? Which will be on top?

Add some cooking oil until you have about a half-inch layer of oil on top of the water. Wait until the oil and water have separated into two layers before the next step.

Sprinkle salt on top of the oil. Keep adding salt to see what happens.

What’s Going On:

The oil is lighter than water, so it floats. The salt is heavier than both the oil and the water, so it sinks. As the salt passes through the oil layer, it picks up blobs of oil, which cling to the grains of salt temporarily and sink to the bottom of the glass. Then the oil breaks free from the salt and floats to the top.


FUN WITH PAPER CLIPS

See how many paper clips it takes to make a full glass of water overflow.

What You Need:

  • clear plastic cup
  • 100 small metal paper clips

What You Do:

Fill the cup to the top with water.

Guess how many paper clips it will take to make the water overflow. Write down your guess.

Carefully drop one paper clip at a time into the cup. Count how many it takes to make the water overflow. Was your guess close?

Look at the cup from the side. The water is bulging upward like a balloon!

More fun: Fill the sink or a dish with water. Carefully lay a small piece of paper on top of the water. See how many paper clips you can put on top of the paper before it sinks. Try using different sizes of paper.

What’s Going On:

Drops of water stick to each other. That is why the surface of the water bulged when you added the paper clips. Scientists call this surface tension. The surface tension of the water is what held up the floating paper until the weight of the paper clips became too heavy.


50 Comments on 6 Weird Science Experiments

  1. now i don,t need that lava lamp for christmas!

  2. mynameiswacko // December 20, 2008 at 1:24 pm // Reply

    well,i have all of the things for lava lamp,i’ll try it! ::)

  3. mynameiswacko // December 20, 2008 at 1:22 pm // Reply

    i don’t have the right stuff. 🙁

  4. Bill Nye (The Science Guy) // December 10, 2008 at 6:32 pm // Reply

    awesome expirements!! you will go far in the science world. there are many broad horizons for you to overtake. just go for it!!

  5. Thank you for your crazy ideas. They really helped me do good with my science project!!!! THANH YOU VERY MUCH!!!!!!!

  6. i love your science becuase its weird and wack

  7. your weird things are cool they drove me crazy

  8. thanks for this sight its so cool espeishily the lava lamp

  9. Lava lamps awesome

  10. To the SEAS person,whoever you are, try not putting as much of the of the salts in and putting more vegetable oil. Hope it works!

  11. totally wicked, dude! The Swimming Spaghetti and the Fish in the Bowl were the best.They were all pretty good though.

  12. Angel Worior // November 1, 2008 at 9:12 pm // Reply

    Science rocks

  13. I gota try ALL of these!!!!

  14. I gotta try this !!!

  15. FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN

  16. science is fun

  17. amazing

  18. awesome

  19. super awesome! // September 23, 2008 at 6:12 pm // Reply

    i tryed the 1st experement. IT WAS AWESOME!!!

  20. these are some pretty cool experiments they should be in the next issue

  21. SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS ARE AWSOME DUDES

  22. SCIENCE IS COOL BECAUSE U CAN MAKE COOL EXPERIMENTS

  23. HEY I LOVE SCIENCE BECAUSE U CAN MAKE COOL SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS

  24. Im trying the lava lamp one today

  25. i lovescience you guys need to put on the website the tornado in a bottle project

  26. The lava lamp sounds cool!

  27. I think They all are cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  28. pretty cool!!!! i REALLY wana try these expecially the lava lamp one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! =)

  29. the make a lava lamp thing rocks and i can make a show and have it on tv and ill do that exparement.

  30. In the activity “make a lava lamp”, when I add the veg.oil on the water, the oil gets hardened and became solid>>>like a hardened wax… so I cannot perform the experiment properly… I’ll ask a question, should I directly drop the salts in the water with veg.oil? reply asap on this website!!! HAND!!!!

  31. its all awesome !!

  32. theyre all awesome especially the lava lamp one!!

  33. cool but i know something cooler …how to make a battery with quarters

  34. I love experments

  35. I am going to try the secret message experiment!

  36. i’m going to try all of them

  37. Boy Scout Dude // July 27, 2008 at 2:44 pm // Reply

    I wonder if they work? Im going to try the lava lamp. Im going to a boy scout camp and i will show everyone there it if it works.

  38. I think thay are boring

  39. dr.science // June 21, 2008 at 5:11 pm // Reply

    how to make sunsceen

  40. these are sweet experiments! i’ll try them out.

  41. These are interesting. I liked the Baking soda experiment and found it to be cooler with bigger quantities

  42. do these exspiriments work?

  43. this is awsome exspiriments!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  44. The lava lamp is so cool. I like the bubbles!

  45. Anonymous // May 29, 2008 at 9:53 pm // Reply

    this is very babyish but its rly fun 🙂

  46. I like to do sience experiments . I also do well in sience at school.

  47. there preaty cool. they all work

  48. Shadowfax // May 16, 2008 at 6:58 pm // Reply

    lava lamp was amazing

Leave a Reply to levinski Cancel reply

Please don't use your real name.