4 wacky experiments you can try at home this school holiday season
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Thinking of what to do this coming school holiday season with your kids? Well look no further because we’ve got you covered! Inspired by the new Mythbusters Jr. - a show giving America’s best and brightest 8-14 year olds a chance to show the whole nation what they know. A show where kids get to show off their ingenuity and STEM superskills? What’s not to love!
Thanks to Mythbusters Jr. on Discovery Channel, we were able to put together a list of fun experiments you can do at home that will definitely catch your kid’s attention and keep them occupied until school starts again.
1. Ice Bending
Ever wanted to manipulate ice and make ice sculptures? Well this experiment is the perfect at-home version for it. To carry out this experiment you will need:
● Purified water
● Functioning freezer (if it wasn’t obvious enough?)
● And some time to spare (2 hours and 45 minutes to be exact)
Now that you have everything ready, what you need to do is to simply take the bottle out of the freezer, after 2 hours and 45 minutes, and give it a knocking. It will start to turn into ice instantly, slowly taking over the whole bottle. If you want to take it up a notch, place ice cubes in a bowl and pour the water on top of it. Voila! Now you can ice bend it into any shape you like.
2. Lighting smoke
This experiment only requires three items and the energy to do it over and over again.
You’ll need to have with you the following:
● Candle
● Match
● Spoon
Start off with a lit candle, enjoy it and when you feel like you want to put it out, simply place the spoon on the candle and remove it. As the spoon is moved off and away from the candle, the smoke from the candle follows. The tricky part comes here, you need to have the match ready to light it again. Swiftly, aim the lit match at the end of the smoke not the candle wick and it lights up the candle again.
3. Invisible writing
If you have ever seen any of the movies where there is a hidden message on a piece of paper and is only revealed when held up to the light then you have maybe wondered the big question of “How?” the answer is in just a few items. Here’s what you need:
● Plain piece of paper
● Limon / lime
● A tool to use for writing (no ink)
● Source of heat
You will need to write out your message on the piece of paper with the writing tool using lemon/lime as the ink. Take a look at your paper, nothing on there, right? Now hold it on top of your heat source and watch it appear looking a little brown. Feel like a secret agent yet?
4. Mini rockets
This is one of the few experiments that require two items that can easily be found around the house. You can have fun with this experiment if you have the following:
● Tea bags
● Match / lighter
Take your tea bag and open it completely by removing the stable, label and string then unfold it and pour out the tea leaves and place it in an upright position. Basically by this point you should have the bag in a cylinder shape with one opening on the bottom surface and the other facing up. The final touch is to light the side facing up with the match or lighter and watch it take off like a rocket. Congratulations! You’re on your way to becoming a spacecraft engineer. Or so we hope. Didn’t think you could easily do exciting home science experiments with your kid, did you? How about you take things up a notch, with some myth busting experiments instead?
Mythbusters Jr. will be premiering on Discovery Channel (Astro Channel 571) on Wednesday, 6 March at 9.55pm so you can catch more wacky experiments to inspire the creativity of your young scientists at home!
Premiere Date: Wednesday, 6 March 2019
Premiere Time: 9.55pm
Episodes: 10 x 60 mins
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