Experiments in the kitchen
EXPLORING and learning about science should not be confined to the classroom as it can also happen at home.
Conducting home experiments allows children to understand how science works in real life and around them every day.
Simple experiments using safe household items are not only educational but also allow parents to bond with their children and create a fun learning experience together.
One of the best places to conduct experiments in is the kitchen. There are many household items and food ingredients that can be used to conduct experiments to learn about different properties and characteristics.
However, parents must ensure that these home experiments are safe for children and do not use materials that contain toxins. Here is a good example.
Cool goo
Besides being super fun, this tactile experiment teaches children physics and chemistry with ingredients that you can easily find in the kitchen.
What you need:
Corn flour
Water
Food colouring (optional)
Instructions:
Make a batch of goo by slowly mixing one part water to one and a half to two parts corn flour. Mix thoroughly to get rid of any lumps.
What to do:
Swirl your fingers around in the goo. Does it feel like liquid?
Take a fistful of it and squeeze. Does it become a solid ball? Drop it onto the table and watch what happens – does it turn into liquid again? How it works:
This goo is an oobleck, a non-Newtonian fluid that has both liquid and solid properties. It was inspired by the fictional green substance in the Dr Seuss book Bartholomew and the Oobleck.
The oobleck feels solid when you squeeze or punch it but feels like liquid when you slowly dip your hand into it because it is made up of molecules arranged in long chains.
When the chains are stretched, the oobleck flows like liquid. When the chains are forced together, they stick together to form a solid.
Things to experiment:
1 Try manipulating water and corn flour contents to produce goo with different consistencies. Do they then exhibit more solid-like or liquid-like consistencies?
2 What other different flours can you use to produce different goo? Do they have the same consistency and texture as the
corn flour goo?