We Love These Silly Science Experiments For Kids!

Materials: 1. A flat tray 2. Food coloring 3. Whole milk 4. Liquid dish soap Steps: 1. First, pour the milk into the tray. 2. Next, add 6-8 drops of different colored food coloring a onto the milk in different spots. 3. Finally, add 5 drops of liquid dish soap onto the drops of food coloring. Lesson: The dish soap breaks down the fat in the milk. While it was breaking down the fat in the milk, it causes the colors to scatter and mix to create a colorful show!

Burger meet copper. Follow @the-future-now

A perfect aerodynamic balance that makes the paper plan to float…

I grew crystals in my fridge last night. They are also lavender scented. Here’s how I did it: About 2 cups of lavender scented Epsom salts. A glass jar. 1 cup of hot water (microwaved the water) ½ cup of additional hot water with food coloring of your choice (I used green) A fridge to put the jar of melted Epsom salts in over night.

Directions:

The ½ cup water, get it hot then you are gonna mix food coloring in it and set it aside.

Put your Epsom salts in the glass jar.

Take the full cup of hot water and pour into the jar over the Epsom salts. Stir for two minutes.

Take the colored water you had put aside and add it to the jar. Stir it up and then put the jar in the fridge (24 hrs)

When it is time to take the jar out of the fridge, it won’t look different at first do not get discurged! You have to get rid of the remaining liquid, once you do, the result will be your very own crystals grown by you!

Today’s Illustrated Women in History is a written submission by James Purvis.

Caroline Herschel 1750 - 1848

Caroline Herschel was an astronomer and singer, and was the first woman to be paid for her contribution to science.

At the age of 22 Herschel, who had received training in music against the wishes of her mother, left her home in Hanover to join her brother William, who had established himself as an Organist in Bath, England. Herschel soon distinguished herself by becoming the principal singer in her brother’s Oratorio concerts, and received offers to perform across the country.

Alongside his musical career, William Herschel’s interest in astronomy grew, and with the assistance of Herschel he was eventually offered the position of court astronomer to King George III. At this time, Herschel chose to leave her singing career and become her brother’s scientific assistant, although some of her later writings suggest that this was perhaps not an easy decision.

Her skill as an astronomer was formidable, and in her obituary, the Royal Astronomical Society praised her ‘indefatigable zeal, diligence and singular accuracy of calculation’ as being significant contributors to her brother’s astronomical success. Herschel was awarded a salary by the court as an assistant astronomer, becoming the first woman to be paid as a scientist.

Her work included the grinding of mirrors for reflecting telescopes, taking observations of stretches of the sky, and detailing the precise timings and positions of the observed astronomical objects, as well as a great deal of calculation in order to translate these times and positions into usable data.

Between the assistance that she rendered to her brother’s work, Herschel found time for her own research, discovering a number of comets, as well as previously unobserved nebulae and star clusters, and compiling catalogues of the stars.

Herschel was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, and was later made an honorary member. Today, she is commemorated by a crater on the moon which is named after her.

If you would like to submit a biography of a woman in history to be illustrated and featured, please send me a message!

GIF Tip: Build a Potential Energy Vehicle 

Create a vehicle that stores potential energy, then converts it to kinetic energy. A fundamental law of Physics is that energy is never created or destroyed, only changed from one form to another.

For more GIF Tips, check out Megan Leppla’s blog.

Materials: 1. A D size battery 2. Paper clips 3. 3 feet of thin coated copper wire 4. A 3 inch large iron nail

Steps: 1. First, leave 8 inches of wire at one end and wrap most of the rest of the wire on the nail ( do not overlap the wires). 2. Next, leave 8 inches of wire at the other end of the nail. 3. Then, remove an inch of the plastic coating from both ends of the wire and attach one end of the wire to one end of the battery and the other wire to the other end of the battery. 4. Finally, put the nail near the paper clips and it should pick them up!

Lesson: Magnets that cannot be turned off like ones on our refrigerators are called permanent magnets. Since the magnet we made can be turned off and on, it is known as an electromagnet. They run on electricity and are only magnetic when the electricity is flowing through the wires, which has the molecules in the nail attract to the metal paper clips.

Materials: 1. A plastic comb 2. A narrow stream of water from a tap. 3. Dry hair Steps: 1. First, turn on the water. 2. Next, run the comb through your hair about 10 times. 3. Then, slowly move the comb towards the stream of water without touching it 4. Finally, you will notice how the water bends because of static electricity. Lesson: When you comb your hair, electrons, negativity charged particles, jump from your hair to the comb, and, thus, makes the comb negatively charged. Since water has both positive and negative charged particles, it is neutral. The positive and negative charges are attracted to each other when you move the negatively charged comb towards the stream, which results in the attraction of the water's positive charged particles creating the water to bend.

The Feminine Face of Space

Museum of Cosmonauts, 1984 - 2015