All things science ...

Ben has got the bug for reading the Horrible Histories, Geography and Science series and is now draining Peterborough and Lincolnshire libraries of them all! He's pretty quick at reading (and very good at telling us all about each book), so they're getting back on the library shelves quite quickly!

The science ones gave him the bug to do some experiments. Top of his list was learning about light as he'd read about Isaac Newton. We actually did a small project on this subject last year, although he didn't really remember any of it! I guess this proves once again that you're really only going to take in details and learn something if you yourself bring on the initial need to learn it!


Using a torch to reveal a spectrum when white light reflects on the tiny dents of the CD surface.


Getting the spectrum again, this time from dropping clear nail varnish into a bowl of water, dipping black paper in and seeing the colours once light is reflected by the layers of varnish.

We also had a bash at making a pinhole camera, but failed miserably!

Digging our our pack of 52 Amazing Science Experiments cards (by Lynn Gordon), we tried "Super Egg" - placing a raw egg into a glass of vinegar and leaving it for a couple of days. The egg felt rubbery after this, as the calcuim carbonate (that makes up the shell) had been broken down by the vinegar. We were able to bounce the rubberised egg a couple of times in the sink before it exploded! Having watched Richard Hammond's engineering programme on TV, we were also interested to see shell-less eggs being used to demonstrate the process of osmosis by place them inside jars of water and syrup. The egg sucked up the water whereas with the syrup, the egg shrivelled as the sugar sucked the moisture from the egg.

Other experiments from the pack included dropping stones, chalk and shells into vinegar to see which fizzed (and therefore reveal which contain limestone (or calcuim carbonate). Using a bowl of water and an upturned class to discover air pressure. Discovering that some felt tip pens are made up of different colours by placing a dot of felt tip ink onto blotting paper, placing it in water to see the spread of colours over a couple of days. Finally, making fizzy orange juice by adding bicarbonate of soda to juice - it tasted good to start with, but not for long!