Tag Archives: try this at home

#TryThisTuesday: Honeycomb

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honeycomb

Honeycomb or Cinder Toffee not only makes a great Bonfire Night snack, it’s also a fun and quick science experiment! Here’s our simple recipe for the honeycomb reaction:
1. Grease a baking tray with butter and set aside.
2. Mix 100g sugar with 2.5 tablespoons of golden syrup in a pan. Mix the two well before you heat the pan.


3. Gently heat the pan, try not to stir the mixture at this point just let it gently begin to melt.
4. Once you can see the sugar start to melt you can push the sugar around to ensure in melts evenly and doesn’t burn.
5. When all the sugar has melted turn up the heat so the sugar begins to boil and forms an amber coloured caramel
6. Turn off the heat and add one teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda, beat the mixture quickly as it begins to bubble up to incorporated all the bicarb then tip onto the greased baking tray.


7. Leave to set for 30-60 minutes then enjoy!

The Science

The heat causes the bicarbonate of soda (NaHCO3) to break down and release the gas, carbon dioxide (CO2). The gas gets trapped within the sugar, this results in the bubbles in your honeycomb.

honeycomb

World Egg Day: Eggsellent Experiments

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egg-carton-628x363

Happy world egg day! Here are some cracking eggsperiment that you can at home on this very important day:

Egg in a Bottle

For this experiment you will need a hard boiled egg, an empty plastic bottle, a scrap of paper and a lighter.

Light the paper and drop it into the bottle. After a second place the egg on top of the bottle and observe the results.

The lit paper heats up the air in the bottle, causing it to expand slightly and for some air to escape. The egg creates a seal so more air cannot enter. As the air cools inside the bottle it decreases the pressure and forces the egg into the bottle.

Floating Egg

All you need to try this one is an egg, a glass, water and salt.

Fill you glass half full with tap water and carefully place the egg inside. It should sink. Add some salt until the egg floats. The salt increases the density of the water, when you add enough the egg becomes less dense than the water so floats to the top.

Next dribble spoonfuls of tap water down the side of the glass until it is full. The egg should appear to float in the middle of the glass, it is actually floating on top of the salt water with a layer of fresh water above it.

Hard boiled Spin

Lay a hard boiled egg flat on its side and spin it. Put your finger on it to stop and then let go, nothing remarkably happens there. Try the same with a raw egg and when you let go it will start spinning again on its own accord.

This is all due to momentum. When you spin the eggs you spin their insides too. In the hard boiled egg, the insides are fixed to the shell so it behaves as you would expect. In the raw egg the insides continue to spin after you’ve stopped the shell. When you let go, the momentum of the spinning yolk carries the shell and the whole egg starts spinning again.

 

#TryThisTuesday: Make your own Sherbet

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sherbet

This week we’re taking on the science of sweets! Here is a super easy way to make your own sherbet powder at home.

All you will need is:

  • 7 teaspoons of sugar (either caster sugar or icing sugar)
  • 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
  • 3 teaspoons of citric acid in powder form

Mix your ingredients in a bowl and then take a small amount on a teaspoon and have a taste. It should fizz in your mouth.

Where does the fizz come from?

When you place the mixture on your tongue it reacts with the water in your mouth and produces carbon dioxide, this causes the fizzy feeling.

sherbet-equation

The reaction occurs because  acids, like the citric acid used here, release charged hydrogen particles when added to water. These particles will attack an alkaline (the opposite of an acid) such as bicarbonate of soda. The reaction produces more stable molecules – water and carbon dioxide.

If you pour water onto your mixture you should be able to see the reaction that’s happening in your mouth. You can actually feel the carbon dioxide gas being released if you hold your hand close to the surface.

#TryThisTuesday: Floating Paperclip

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floatingpaperclip

Can you make a paperclip float in water? Your standard metal paperclip isn’t very buoyant and as you would expect, tends to sink in water. But with just a piece of tissue paper and a pencil you can make a paperclip float…

  1. Place a small piece of tissue paper in the water so it floats
  2. Carefully put your paperclip on the tissue paper without you touching the paper
  3. Slowly use the pencil to push the paper down so it sinks – try not to touch the paperclip.
  4. You should be left with a floating paperclip – but is it really floating?


The science

Technically, the paperclip isn’t actually floating. It is held on the surface of the water by surface tension. Water molecules tend to attract one another and this forms a ‘skin’ on top where the water particles hold tightly together. This surface tension is strong enough to hold the paperclip. But if you poke the paperclip or shake the bowl, you break the surface tension and the paperclip will sink.

Pond skaters also use water tension to walk on water. They have evolved legs that distribute their weight evenly and so are adapted to life on the water’s surface.

pond_skater_1