Nicolaus Copernicus was a Polish astronomer born in February 1473 who realised that the Earth orbits the Sun. This idea was strongly opposed at the time as many people believed objects orbited around a central Earth. The model proposed by Copernicus was called Heliocentrism. What is Heliocentrism? Heliocentrism ( helios means Sun ) is where…
Why does salt melt ice? We’ve experimented with ice and salt before and found that salt does make ice melt faster, but do you know why? Salt lowers the freezing point of water which sounds complicated but actually makes a lot of sense once you try it out! The photo above is just a block…
Following on from our solar system-themed activities is this easy layers of the Earth model made with play dough. My 7-year-old wasn’t very impressed when I showed him my composition of the Earth model, but once I carved it open, he declared it to be ‘quite cool’. It’s not perfect and not really to scale…
A sign of autumn is when leaves on some trees start to change colour. The green colour starts to fade to be replaced by red, orange or yellow. Do you know why leaves change colour in autumn? Why do leaves change colour in autumn? Plants make energy through a process called photosynthesis. They convert carbon…
Lemons float on water, but do you know how to make a lemon sink? This fun science trick will baffle your friends and is a great way to learn about density! Photo taken from Snackable Science What you need to make a lemon sink Bowl Water Lemon or orange We tried pushing a lemon down…
Today we have an investigation for little astronomers to demonstrate how the universe is expanding. Did you know we are part of a spiral galaxy called the Milky Way? Earth is located in an arm of the spiral. What is the Universe? When we talk about the universe, we mean everything that exists. Galaxies, planets…
Why does food rot? Have you ever noticed that if you leave an apple (or any fruit ) for too long, it starts to rot or decay? This can lead to significant food waste, so it’s important to understand how to store food items to keep them as fresh as possible. Why does food rot?…
Yeast is a living single celled organism commonly used in baking. Yeast is a type of leavener ( baking soda and baking powder can also be used as leavening agents ). Yeast converts sugar and starch ( from the sugar and flour in the bread mix ) into carbon dioxide and ethanol. The carbon dioxide…
Elasticity is the ability of an object to return to its original shape after being subjected to a force ( for example, being stretched, pulled, squashed or twisted ). Elastic objects bounce back to their original shape very quickly! What is elastic distortion? Elastic distortion is when an object returns to its original shape when…
Today’s experiment is very simple. We made some ice cubes and then put them in different places to watch them melt. This is a great activity for learning about melting and freezing! You can use standard ice cubes or any shaped moulds you have around the house. Melting ice cubes learning objectives Discover that water…
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