Can you teach science to children at home? The answer is yes, for those who want to tickle their curiosity this autumn, there are plenty of fun home experiments to do with your babysitter. One person who loves to experiment and teach herself is Alma von Hogerlinden, a student at Stockholm University. She is now studying chemistry and hopes to work in that field later, but it all started in the kitchen with some sugar and water.
-I was so interested in science as a child, especially chemistry. I remember it was so incredibly exciting to set up little experiments and see what happened, it became like little projects. Now I'm studying chemistry at university, so my interest probably started thanks to my home experimentation.
Alma explains that she doesn't have as much time to do experiments at home nowadays, but on her days off, she does indulge in the odd fun project.
- The best thing about so-called kitchen science, is that there are almost always things to make, because most of the time you find the things in your own kitchen. Yet you can learn so much about chemistry and how things work just through simple home experiments.
Alma says that as a child she was often taught experiments by her parents, but nowadays she only looks up tips and tricks online when she wants to do something.
- Now everything is on Youtube and the explanations can be googled, it is actually quite wonderful.
Science at home - Alma's favourite experiments :
Sugar crystals
You need :
- a glass of water
- 2-3 glasses of granulated sugar (sucrose)
- A glass jar or beaker
- clothespin
- barbecue stick
- saucepan
- something to stir with (spoon)
- caramel colour
- One glass
How to do it:
Get out the glass jar, a barbecue stick and a clothespin. Dip the stick in a little water and then sugar, so that a thin layer of sugar sticks to the stick, leave to dry. With the help of the babysitter or other adult, boil some water in the saucepan. Carefully pour in a little sugar at a time, until all the sugar is dissolved in the water, then leave the solution to cool. Now add caramel colouring (optional) to the saucepan to give the crystals a nice colour. Pour the solution into the glass jar where the crystals will grow. Then, using a clothespin, fix the grill stick in the centre of the jar so that it hangs vertically in the jar without touching the bottom. Store the mixture in a cool, dry place. As the solution cools further, crystals will start to grow on the stick. It may take up to a week to see results. Keep an eye on the solution daily so that the crystals on the stick do not come into contact with the crystals on the walls of the glass jar, if they do, rearrange the stick slightly. When the crystal is ready, use a knife to gently crack the top layer of crystals in the glass jar, then pull the stick up and let it hang in a new glass in the same way, but this time just to dry. The result? A super fine and tasty sugar crystal!
How does it work?
Sugar crystals form as a result of what is called a supersaturated solution. This means that there is more sugar in the water than would normally dissolve, but when we heat and mix the solution, the sugar dissolves. Because there is so much sugar compared to water, there is a high chance of the sugar molecules bumping into each other, and when they do, crystals form! With the stick, there is a concentrated place for the crystal to form, and therefore a beautiful crystal is formed on a grill stick from the kitchen.
Magic milk
You will need:
- Milk
- Different caramel colours
- dishwashing detergent
- deep plate
- toothpick
How to do it:
Pour milk into the deep plate so that the bottom of the plate is covered. Then pour drops of caramel colours into the milk near the centre, the easiest way is to create a ring of different drops. Then take the washing-up liquid and pour a drop into the centre of the ring and all at once the colours will start to move. Then use the toothpick to create cool effects!
How does it work?
Soap or washing-up liquid is made up of two parts, one side loves water and the other side loves oil and fat. When the dishwashing liquid is poured into the milk, all the soap molecules work together to find fat molecules in the milk to combine with. What we see when the colour moves in the milk is actually the soap molecules looking for their fat molecule mates.
/ Nanny Rakel
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