Everytime we go for a walk at the moment, my children look for dandelion’s with a full seed head to pick and then blow so they can watch all the tiny parachutes float away on the wind. We started talking about why they fly so well, and their purpose.

We decided to try to make our own parachutes.

What you need:

Paper

Scissors

Sellotape

Optional paperclip

Instructions

Cut an A4 piece of paper lengthways in half so you have two long strips of paper.  Roll each into a tube and stick it in place with sticky tape.  Drop the tubes from somewhere high.  You could try to time their fall (or just note it)

Now use the scissors to cut down the tube in several places. (We gave one tube wide flaps and one very thin flaps.)

Drop the tubes from somewhere high and watch them fall. Does one fall faster than the other? You could also compare the speed of a tube with no flaps falling from the same height.

You can add a paperclip to the bottom to add some weight, but this is not necessary.

*excuse the photos for today, I’m hoping to get some better ones very soon, including some action shots.

The Science Bit

When a dandelion has finished flowering the  flower head dries out and the parachute ball opens into a full sphere. Eventually the seed-bearing parachutes expand and are released. The seed drops off the parachute when it hits the ground or another object.

In our models we were able to make the paper tubes stay in the air longer by providing flaps which offer more air resistance.  This gives them the opportunity to float further away from where they were released.  With Dandelion seeds this means they can spread out further from the main plant, meaning they can populate wider areas than if they just dropped straight off the plant.

Have a look at other ways plants disperse their seeds.  We did notice our models spun as they fell to earth which reminded us of sycamore seeds.

Can you guess what we might be looking at tomorrow?

We would love you to link up to Fun Sparks, any craft or activity post is welcome.

Please link back to Science Sparks. Our badge is in the sidebar.

We are VERY excited to announce ( if you missed it ) that we are finalists in TWO categories for the MAD Blog awards. While we both hoped this would happen, we didn’t dare get our hopes up too much, so last weeks announcement has still not really sunk in. There are so many amazing blogs out there, and we are honoured to be selected as finalists.

If you would like to vote for us, you can do so here, ( it is very easy and quick ) we are in ‘the best MAD schooldays blog’ and ‘most innovative MAD Blog’ categories.

A brief history

The last year has been a bit of a journey for Kerry and I. We met through twitter and our personal blogs, discovering our shared love for science through a meme started by Kerry. In this post I mention my passion for science and how I would love to blog science experiments. Kerry later offered via twitter to help and I asked if she wanted to do it together.

We live about 3 hours drive from each other, so opportunities to meet up are few are far between, usually limited to blogging events in London, but we do tweet, e-mail and Skype frequently.

I feel very lucky to have met some amazing people on twitter and through blogging and Kerry is right up at the top of my list. We are quite similar personalities and I’m sure had we met in ‘real life’ would have still become firm friends.

We both have three small children, and found ourselves unable to return to work due to the cost of childcare, which motivated us to start our respective blogs.

Science Sparks started out as just a post each week on one of our blogs, it was only after CyberMummy last year that we were inspired to give Science Sparks a stand alone site.

We have floundered many times along the way, struggling mostly to find the time to manage our homes, children and two blogs. At times it feels like we are doing a full time job with no childcare.

I have to give a huge shout out to Maggy from Red Ted Art who spotted us struggling and gave us a much needed boost and push to carry on.

We are both overwhelmed by the amount of encouragement we have received along the way. Every lovely tweet, e-mail or comment makes us smile and gives us the confidence to keep going and keep improving on what we do.

So a huge THANK YOU to everyone for supporting us, and please please consider voting for us.

Emma and Kerry

My aim with Science Sparks is to show people that science isn’t scary or boring and you don’t need expensive or hard to find equipment. The investigations that are most fun are those  you can do with ingredients you already have around the house.

I love seeing that spark of interest develop in my children. A spark that leads to questions and more questions helping develop a little enquiring mind.

Emma

‘As a teacher by trade I have a huge passion for science and an awareness of the shortage of scientists in the country and want to make science more accessible for all and something that can be done as a family. We all read stories and attempt the maths homework but we never really think science, and yet it is all around us. For me, at pre-school and primary level, it is not about the understanding how, although that its fab, it is more about getting the ‘Wow!’ and sparking children’s imaginations and minds to want to know more! Science is not a scary subject and our aim is to bring it into the home and make it easy and fun!

Kerry

Today we are looking at filtering and how it can be used to clean dirty water.

What you need:

Dirty water ( or mud and clean water )

A funnel

Coffee filter/paper towel/muslin

An empty bottle

Instructions

Place your filter into the funnel and pour the water through slowly.

Is the water cleaner?

Can you see the solids trapped by the filter?

There are many different ways you could construct this investigation. You could try just one filter and talk about how it traps the big bits of mud and dirt but smaller particles pass through, or you could compare 2 or 3 different types of filters to see what happens.

Is kitchen roll better than a coffee filter, would just a sieve work?

You could also work in stages, so try a colander, then a sieve and then a paper towel. Each stage should trap smaller and smaller particles.

The Science Bit

A filter is a porous material which a liquid can be passed though to separate the liquid from solids suspended in it.

We also have this post where we filtered toys.

Emma @sciencesparks

‘Thank crunchie it’s Friday’ seems the perfect phrase for today’s experiment as it involves honeycomb and we are going to make out very delicious own!

You will need:

100g of sugar

1 table of water

2 table spoons of golden syrup

1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

The ingredients!

Method:

1. Put of the ingredients except the bicarbonate of soda into a saucepan and place on a low heat

2. Line a baking tray with silver foil.

Makes thing easier to clean up!

3. Stir until all the sugar has dissolved. Raise the heat slightly so that it bubbles, and stir occasionally until you cannot feel any sugar at the bottom of the pan.

No grainy sugar

4. Take off the heat.

5. Add bicarbonate of soda and stir!

5. Watch what happens – it should all froth up with bubbles in the pan

Wow! Frothy!

6. Pour out into your baking tray (and dunk your pan straight into hot soapy water!)

7. Allow to cool. When solid smash into tasty treats – lovely crumbled as a topping on top of vanilla ice cream!

Yummy honeycomb!

Look at the air bubbles and holes!

The science bit

Welcome to this weeks Fun Sparks. So what do you think we are do tomorrow? I shall give you a clue…it is kitchen science!

We love to see what you have been up to with your children, so please link up any fun activity below and we promise to come and take a look.

Please include a link back to Science Sparks in your post or blog.

Thanks,

Kerry

Coin poppers is a brilliant experiment to demonstrate air pressure!

What you need:

A small empty plastic drink bottle

A 2p coin

A small square of kitchen roll

Method

1. Put the empty bottle in the freezer for about an hour to cool.

Cool it!

2. Cut a small square of tissue paper and put it on top of the 2p piece

Simple equipement!

3. Pour a little water over the tissue to stick it to the 2p

Wet the tissue!

4. Without removing the bottle from the freezer, place the 2p on top of the bottle, tissue side down, to seal as a lid.

Seal the lid!

5. Leave for half an hour

6. Bring out and warm the top of the bottle with your hands!

7. Watch the magic!

The science bit

We assume we have put an empty bottle inside the freezer but of course it is actually full of air which is a mixture of gases, containing nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide amogst others. As a gas cools it shrinks lowering the pressure, but becasue the lid is off, more air can enter the bottle from the freezer. Once you placed the coin lid on, you have sealed the top. As the air inside warms up again from your hands, it expands, and forces more pressure on the inside of the bottle and the lid,compared to outside the bottle. It makes enough pressure to break te seal and pop the lid.

When you think of a mixture of substances what do you think about? Probably not cream?

Cream is a type of mixture called a colloid, it is made up of very tiny particles of fat dispersed in water.

What you need

• Thick cream
• A container with a lid

Instructions

• Let the cream warm up to room temperature.
• Half fill the container and shut the lid tightly.
• Shake the jar until you feel a lump form.

Your cream should have turned into a lump of butter with some milky looking liquid left behind.

What do you think of the taste? It should taste quite different to shop bought butter as it doesn’t have any added flavourings or preservatives.

The Science Bit

When you shake the cream the fat particles stick together, which forms butter.

Cream and butter are a type of colloid known as an emulsion.

This investigation is very simple but fascinating.

What you need

• A broad bean seed
• Jar
• Kitchen roll or a napkin
• Water

Instructions

• Swirl a small amount of water around the jar.
• Fold your napkin or kitchen roll and place in the jar. ( we made the kitchen roll very slightly damp also )
• Place the bean seed in the jar resting on the napkin.
• Spray some water on the bean every few days.

The bean should start to grow roots after a few days, this is called germination.

We kept one bean in the dark and one in the light, both germinated and grew into small bean plants. This shows that light is not necessary for germination.

You can see here that the plant grown in the dark is a slightly less green than the one grown in the light. We have seen this before with the cress.

What amazes me the most is that all this can grow from one tiny seed with no additional nutrients other than those contained in the bean itself.

After a few days in the light the bean plant kept in the dark was as luscious a green colour as its counterpart.