It’s not difficult to execute, the ingredients are easy to find, and the results are interesting—these are the experiences you will have through 7 simple science experiments in this article.
Science may seem dry and hard to understand, but if you grasp the basic theories, you can easily conduct fascinating experiments right at home.
The experiments introduced in this article, featured by Business Insider, only use common ingredients and chemicals that are easily available in local stores. Additionally, the methods are quite simple to carry out at home.
1. Create a Tornado in a Bottle
You can create tornadoes inside a bottle of water by utilizing the principle of vortex formation. Shake the bottle vigorously and create a constriction at the neck of the bottle. All you need are two bottles of water, a connector tube, and water. To see the tornado more clearly, you can add food coloring to the water.
2. Rainbow in a Glass
This experiment uses food coloring and varying densities of liquids to create distinct layers of color reminiscent of a rainbow. To achieve this, you’ll need to add sugar to the glass. The colored layer will be on top, and the varying densities will create a beautiful gradient similar to a rainbow.
3. Make a Large Slime Blob
By mixing glue, water, a bit of food coloring, and some borax, you can create a special type of slime. This mixture forms slime due to the polyvinyl acetate (a type of polymer) present in the glue. Borax helps bond the polyvinyl acetate molecules to create larger polymers.
4. Create a Rocket Engine
You can easily create a rocket engine using yeast, hydrogen peroxide, a glass bottle, fire, and… an uncooked piece of pasta.
When you mix the yeast and hydrogen peroxide, they react to produce oxygen gas (O2). When the O2 escapes through the piece of pasta, simply lighting the end will cause it to ignite like a real rocket engine.
5. Homemade Lava Lamp
Alka-Seltzer is a remedy for heartburn or stomach aches, but it can also be used to create a fascinating homemade lava lamp. To make this lava lamp, you will need water, cooking oil, and an Alka-Seltzer tablet.
Since oil and water have different densities, when mixed, the water will settle at the bottom and the oil will float on top. To clearly see the water layer at the bottom, you can add a bit of food coloring.
When you drop an Alka-Seltzer tablet, it reacts with the water and causes colored droplets to rapidly bubble up (in the form of gas bubbles), but because they are blocked by the oil layer, the bubbles will continue to sink back down. This fascinating reaction resembles the lava lamps commonly found in stores.
6. Instant Ice Water
To freeze water quickly into ice, this experiment requires a block of ice. This method applies to regular water containing particles and impurities. However, with pure water, things are different. It can reach temperatures lower than regular water before freezing.
Pure water can freeze and become cold up to -40 degrees Celsius. If you place an unopened bottle of pure water in the freezer for less than 3 hours, it can even be colder than standard freezing temperatures.
Thanks to this principle, if you pour this supercooled water over a small ice block, it will instantly turn into ice.
7. Magnetic Fluid Experiment
This interesting experiment allows you to observe magnetic fields. All you need is iron oxide, water, and a glass container. When you place a very strong magnet outside the glass container, the iron oxide in the water will quickly be attracted to it, stacking up and even moving around the container as you manipulate the magnet from the outside.
