We tested this out against a wall using chalk to mark reach and then standing next to the wall to see if it matched height. You should measure from finger tip to finger tip and not have a flat hand as in this photo.

We found my 6 year old’s arm span did equal his height and my 4 year old was a little taller than hers.

Ape index is the ratio of arm span relative to their height. So my little boy had an ape index of 1.

A arm span greater than height is thought to be advantageous in some sports such as swimming, as longer arms may give greater propulsion. A shorter arm span is useful for weight lifters as they don’t have to lift the weight as high.

Can you work out your Ape Index?

Can you work out how many feet tall you are too?

The post Is your arm span equal to your height? appeared first on Science Sparks.

Here are some of our favourite ideas from Science Sparks and lots of other fantastic blogs.

Water fun

Find out if a filled water balloon sinks or floats.

Play with sponges and water outside and learn about absorption.

Lots of water science including a neat magic trick keeping a paper towel dry in water from Creative connections for Kids.

Try growing some vegetables. What can you grow? Is what you can grow well dependent on the climate where you live?

Try our 5 things to investigate in the paddling pool.

Weather

Do you think you can observe air pressure? Make a barometer and find out.

Make a pinwheel and observe wind strength or how about a kite? Both lovely ideas from Red Ted Art.

Make a super simple rain gauge from a plastic bottle.

Bubbles

Make some rainbow bubbles.

Can you make a square bubble?

Sand

We made a snow volcano, can you make a sand volcano?

Find out all about evaporation.

Make the perfect sandcastle.

Set yourself up with a science lab in the garden and try some dissolving.

Exciting stuff

How high can you get a bottle rocket to launch?

Make some shooters with friends, who can get them to go the furthest?

Can you make a parachute for an egg and safely launch in from a height? Be careful!

Kitchen science outside

We can’t wait to try these goop and flower cupcakes from The Imagination Tree.

Make some ice cream soup with Rainy Day Mum and explore melting.

Blow up a balloon with baking soda from East coast Mommy.

What can you heat up in A solar oven from Crystals Tiny Treasures.

Find out which insulator keeps an ice pop the coldest in this fun investigation from Enchanted Homeschooling Mom.

Train up a child has some great ideas for fun with balloons in the garden. I especially want to try the baking soda activity.

Test out filtering by cleaning up water.

Nature

Find out how tall a tree is.

Make a potion and find the best stick to stir it.

Try Colouring Carnations from Kitchen Counter Chronicles.

Make some rose petal perfume and explore mixing and scents with The Imagination Tree.

Find out how a dandelion seed flies.

Find out all about Earthworms.

Watch butterflies grow with Red Ted Art.

Explore the lifecycle of a lady bird with this fun fingerprint activity from Reading Confetti.

Make some great Chromatography butterflies with Buggy and Buddy.

Make some plant babies.

Learn about plant anatomy.

Build a den with sticks and leaves. What shape gives a stable structure.

Ice fun

Try some colour mixing with fruity ice.

Have some fun exploring melting.

Explore an icy balloon.

Make some lovely, pretty summery ice with The Imagination Tree.

Try some garden measuring.

Finally,

Kidventures has 7 great ways to incorporate science into your summer.

Phew, can you think of any more for us?

We also have a great round up of 50 Kitchen Science Ideas.

The post 50 Summer Science Ideas appeared first on Science Sparks.

We were playing with water balloons, filling them up getting ready to soak each other and I asked the kids while they were holding them if they thought they would float or sink. The consensus was they would sink because they were heavy. Out of interest I asked them if they thought an empty balloon would sink or float, they thought it would float.

We got a saucepan deep enough to allow our balloons to sit inside and we filled it up with cold water. We then dropped in our balloons and waited. All of the balloons floated, including the empty ones.

We took out one of the balloons and rolled it around in our hands and noticed the air bubble always rose to the top. We wondered if this made the balloons float. I realised we could test this. Our balloons came with a water pump and I found I could fill them under water without letting any air in.

We did this and checked out balloon for air… None! It still floated!

I then explained that balloon rubber floats which we had already observed and that the water in the balloon was the same as the water in the pan so overall the balloon and water should float right?

I then told the kids that temperature has an affect on water…so we heated up the water in the pan ( keep the kids well away from the hot water )

When the water in the pan was too hot to touch I took it off the heat and put it somewhere safe where the kids could see it, then carefully put the balloon in it. It sank.

Twenty minutes later when we came in the balloon was floating… How strange …. what do you think happened?

The science bit

Warm water is less dense than cold water, so the cold water in the water balloon was more dense than the hot water and so sank. As the water cooled down, it’s density increased making the balloon float again.

Warm water is less dense than cold water because the heat source excites the water molecules making them move faster, when they bang into each other they bounce away making the distance between them further.

Don’t forget you can follow Science Sparks on Pinterest and Facebook.

The post How to make a water balloon sink appeared first on Science Sparks.

Our new  Challenge and Discover  theme is Kitchen Chemistry, so the girls and I set up a little chemistry lab yesterday, with quite impressive results. Kitchen Chemistry really is so much fun, we’d love to see you join in.

My favourite posts linked up last month were,

This dolls house is beautiful from Here come the girls, I also love her Post Office role play game and Hungry Caterpillar threading.

Highhill Homeschool has lots of brilliant ideas again this month including this fun investigation into the Spleen.

These water investigations are great fun from Train Up a Child.

Finally, I really want to try these grassheads from Red Ted Art.

What have you been experimenting or creating this month?

I would love to see what you have all been up to recently. Remember the linky stays open throughout May, so do keep popping back and adding links.

I’d really appreciate a text link back, or you can use the badge in our sidebar.

If you don’t want me to use your photo in a round up, please mention in the comments below.

Thanks very much.

The post Fun Sparks – May appeared first on Science Sparks.

This month we’d like you to explore some chemistry in the kitchen. If you don’t have a blog and would like to join in you could upload an image to one of our Facebook pages.

The kitchen is a great place to explore science, as we demonstrated in the round up last week.

My favourite chemical reactions in the kitchen are these fizzing rocks, which are super easy to make and so much fun.

Mixing oil and water.

Making a colourful milk display.

This hangout might also give you some inspiration.

Remember to be careful when experimenting in the kitchen. Wash your hands when you finish and take care not to get anything in your eyes.

Challenge and Discover is in association with  Inspiration Laboratories .

Please link up your kitchen science posts below.

By linking up, you are giving us permission to grab one picture and feature your projects on our blogs and social media sites. There is a badge in the sidebar if you would like to use it.

The post Challenge and Discover – Kitchen Chemistry appeared first on Science Sparks.

As part of our challenge with Actimel we are trying to grow a whole meal in the garden, learning along the way.

Z has been learning about plants at school so was very keen to tell his sisters and I about the purpose of the roots, which we could see beautifully when we removed the beans from the pot.

We rehoused the peas and beans into our planters from last year, fingers crossed the slugs don’t get them. If you have any slug deterrent tips do let me know.

S wanted to keep the smaller ones in our lovely new planter, so we put the greenhouse on top to protect them from bugs and keep them a bit warmer.

We also found a few worms along the way, we were careful not to hurt them and left them in the soil now we know how good they are for it.

We also planted our carrot seeds, and have some corn and lettuce coming along nicely too.

Find out how you can apply for funding from Actimel here.

We were sent the greenhouse and planter from Actimel as part of our EAT project.

The post How does your garden grow? appeared first on Science Sparks.

Hello! Lovely to be visiting Science Sparks again. I think Science Sparks is doing AMAZING things in getting families and bloggers into Science. EVERYONE is doing it now, be it in Science Hangouts or just having fun with the kids at home. HOORAY for Science Sparks. Which makes it even more special and humbling and special to be here today with our simple science experiment!

I normally blog at Red Ted Art and Life At The Zoo. Over on Red Ted Art, we have been making guitars. Which of course have a fabulous Science element to them: Acoustics! What is sound and how does it work? I talk a little about vibrations and different lengths of vibrations over on Life At The Zoo.

What is sound?

Let’s recap: Sound is Energy. An energy that is caused by something moving backwards and forward – like the vibration on a guitar’s string. It is these vibrations and the pitch of them that we discussed on Life At The Zoo.

Sound reflection

For Science Sparks, we explored what happened to sound in different environments – have you ever been in a room with nothing in it? Does it sound echo-y? What is going on?

A smooth flat surface – such a brick, metal or wood, reflects sound – it makes it bounce and come back straight at us. Making it often sound louder (as we have lots of sound waves heading our way) and sometimes echo-y (depending on how large the room is and how long it takes for the sound to “come back to us”). This doesn’t happen in a room that has a sofa, carpet and curtains – the soft furnishings are absorbing the sound.

The Experiment

We can test this with our toy guitar!

We did three things and guessed what the sound would be like:

1) our fingers only

2) the container and elastic bands

3) the container, bands, stuffed with a tea towel.

Fingers 

We have an elastic band on it’s own – we can hear it, but we have to listen really closely. It also sounds “deeper”. The sound is sent in all directions and “lost” in the large room we are in.

Container

We have our empty container with the strings.

The sound is much louder and clear. As expected you can really hear the different notes clearly.

 The container stuffed

He stuffed a tea towel into the container – assuming it would absorb most of the sound. It DID sound a tiny bit quieter, but not as much as expected. I suspect that this is because our strings are wrapped all around the container and that it is still reflecting a sufficient amount of noise energy. Yes, some is absorbed, but we would have to stuff it with more to make more of a difference.

This is the fun of science – thinking about what you expect, observing what is happening and discussing results and finding explanations. I am now on a mission to find some objects that fully muffle our guitar (I suspect placing our duvet all around our container AND stuff it with something REALLY soft, will achieve the desired result!).

Thanks for havings us and letting us explore Acoustics!

The post Acoustic Science – Sound Absorption and Reflection appeared first on Science Sparks.

What you need:

An empty squash bottle.

A small rolled up ball of paper, small enough to sit inside the mouth of the bottle.

Instructions

• Place the bottle on the edge of a table and put the ball of paper inside.

• Try to blow the paper into the bottle.

• It should shoot back out towards you.

Why does it do that?

The same principles that keep aeroplanes in the sky also apply to this neat little experiment. The key point is that moving air is at a lower pressure than still air. This is the Bernoulli Principle. In the case of the squash bottle the air that is blown towards the mouth is deflected around the the sides of the bottle (very little moves past the piece of paper). This means that the air pressure in front of the ball of paper is lower than behind, and so the paper flies out.

Aeroplane wings are specially shaped so that air travels faster over the top of the wing than over the bottom surface. Again the pressure is lower above than below and the wing is “pushed” upward by the higher pressure air – called lift. The faster the plane moves forward the bigger the lift it experiences.

The post Air Pressure appeared first on Science Sparks.

The kitchen is a great place to explore science with children. Even something as simple as melting chocolate is demonstrating science. You can make cook, bake, set up a sensory activity, create some science magic, set up lava lamps and volcanoes or even play with ice. The opportunities are endless.

We have our infamous 10 egg experiments.

Especially for pre schoolers

Have a play with some goop, you could even make it seasonal.

Explore wet and dry with this easy activity.

This density experiment will impress everyone.

Cooking and baking

Transform egg white and make meringue.

Find out all about baking powder by making some pancakes.

How about making some treacle toffee and exploring changes of state?

Explore changes of state with these peppermint creams.

Make a pizza and learn about respiration or make some bread.

Try some colour mixing with jelly.

Make a baked alaska and find out how you can apply heat and still have cold ice cream.

Make some yummy honeycomb and discover why it has holes.

Grow some sugar crystals and make a lolly.

Can you make your own butter?

Learn about Food

Discover why popping candy pops.

Find out about food groups with this fun activity.

Do you know why milk curdles?

Make glue from milk.

Does jelly set with pineapple added?

Explore pumpkins, you could do the same kind of ideas with other vegetables all year around.

This one is not so appetising, but still fun. Find out why apples rot.

Using kitchen equipment

Get imaginative with some mixtures.

Get the kitchen scales out and try some weighing and measuring.

More scientific principles

Learn all about ice and it’s properties with these fun activities.

Explore absorption with sugar cubes.

Learn about filtering by cleaning up dirty water.

Make a firework in a glass and leran why oil and water don’t mix.

Make an indicator with red cabbage.

Create a pretty milk display and learn about emulsions.

Discover how to make a lemon sink.

Look for patterns in your food.

Fun chemical reactions

Make a lava lamp.

Can you make raisins dance? 

These fizzing rocks are a big favourite in our house, you could even add some plastic bugs to give an added twist.

Explore yeast and respiration by blowing up a ballon.

Finally, how about our old favourite the baking soda volcano.

Do let us know if you can think of any more.

We’d also be really grateful if you could spare a few minutes to vote for us in the Brilliance in Blogging Awards, where we are in the Innovate category.

The post 50 Kitchen Science activity ideas appeared first on Science Sparks.

My idea was to try to grow enough ingredients for a whole meal for the family, whilst learning about composting, keeping pests away and generally how to grow food successfully.

Actimel kindly sent us a wormery, bug catchers, magnifying glasses and a planter.

Unfortunately the weather has been a little cold for us to plant much outside, but we have set a few things growing inside.

S couldn’t wait to get started with the wormery, so we set that up straight away.

First we talked about what it would be like to be a worm, and tried slithering around the floor not using arms or legs.

We managed to find lots of worm casts in the lawn as it has been so damp recently. These are swirls of soil made as earth passes through the worm’s stomach.  I remember at school we used a chemical to encourage worms up to the surface, but you could try  watering a small patch of soil to see if you can coax them out.

We have a currently unused vegetable patch so the girls did some careful digging to find worms for us. We talked about how we had to hold them very gently.

We set up the Wormery by building up different layers of sand and soil, then added the worms and a few leaves on top.

Worms do not like sunlight so we kept a cover over the top and stored it in the shade. The children checked the wormery everyday.  The leaves slowly got pulled downwards and all the layers got mixed up. We could see tunnels being formed and how these let air and water into the soil.

A few Eathworm facts

• There are over 3000 different kinds.

• Annelids – the phylum of which Earthworms are part, are good swimmers.

• Some in Australia can grow to over 3 meters long!

• The scientific name for the common earthworm is Lumbricus terrestris.

• Earthworms have no eyes or ears, but are very sensitive to vibrations.

• Worms are often eaten by hedgehogs, birds, frogs and toads.

• There are about 3 million worms per acre of grassland, that is a lot of worms.

• Fossils are rare due to the soft body.

• Earthworms tunnel underground by eating the soil.

• Earthworms feed on leaves and the remains of dead plants. We saw with our wormery that the leaves got broken down and dragged down into the soil.

How do earthworms move?

If you look at an earthworm you can see the body is made up of lots of segments, underneath the segments are muscles which contract and relax allowing the worm to move.

How do earthworms breathe?

Earhworms absorb oxgen through pores in their skin. This is why they come up to the surface when it rains, they need to come to the surface to breathe if their burrow becomes waterlogged.

Why do we need worms?

Worms are essential for the wellbeing of plants. The tunnels allow water to reach the roots and the process of the worm eating soil releases nutirents needed by the plants. Worms are also a source of food for other animals.

Did you know worms were such amazing creatures?

For a light hearted look at the life of a worm, we loved this hilarious book, Diary of a Worm.

Find out how you can apply for funding from Actimel here.

Red Ted Art has some great PLAY ideas also.

We were sent the wormery as part of the Family Wellbeing Program.

We believe every family has the right to happiness, health and togetherness. That’s why we’ve created a way to help boost your family’s wellbeing with smart little tips and small steps that can make a big difference.

The post Worms, worms and more worms appeared first on Science Sparks.