It’s true that I find some of my best experiment inspiration in the hardware store. My team often likes to tell the story about spending five hours at Home Depot before a conference in Atlanta… don’t believe everything you hear. This Teflon Tape experiment is one of my favorites because young scientists get to use a pretty common household material to make their own secret messages. Check out the video below, then read the experiment for the whole story.
Fill the glass jar with water and cover it with a card. As you turn the whole thing upside down, the audience can hardly contain themselves. The room quiets down as you precariously position the inverted jar and card a few feet above someone’s head. And yes, I love the look of terror on my “helper’s” face when I take the card out from under the jar. Watch the video below and read the experiment for a lesson on how to make some science magic.
It’s true that I have some favorite experiments that seem to make it into most of my workshops and presentations. It’s always nice to have a few “stand-bys” in my back pocket that I can use in case of a science emergency. But, it’s even more fun to come up with new variations for the standards. I was excited to introduce the Dancing Raisins experiment on 9News… with some fun new twists. Watch the video to check out the fun.
Over the years, the exploding pumpkin demo is right up there at the top of my short list for my all time favorite, crowd-pleasing science demonstration. But who wants to wait a whole year just to do the demo again? That’s why we’re working on the fine art of watermelon carving… with the aid of a tiny chemical reaction… okay, it’s an explosion. We just substituted a big, juicy watermelon in place of the pumpkin and pulled the trigger. Since the walls of a watermelon are not necessarily as strong as a pumpkin, sometimes the whole darn thing explodes… but that adds to the fun. Check out the video. (If the video doesn’t play, click on Exploding Watermelon Experiment.)
