Not your usual experiment, this is a book: “The League of Scientists” is a young adult fiction book by Andy Kaiser (the creator of Digital Bits Science Lab).

Equipment needed:

The League of Scientists is available here: http://www.LeagueOfScientists.com

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

The League of Scientists is a group of smart kids who love science. They use their knowledge and critical thinking skills to solve seemingly-supernatural mysteries.

One of the components of the book is the mystery aspect, and not just the “main” mystery. In most chapters, there is a puzzle. The solution to the puzzle involves the application of science or critical thinking. The book is intended to give science education (and scientific applications – something you don’t always get from such fiction) while still giving kids a good story and characters.

How does a color TV show colors? How does a computer monitor show colors? Use a hand magnifier to see how a computer or color TV displays such a wide range of colors.

Equipment needed:

A good hand magnifier. A standard low-power magnifying glass will work, although, like other optics, you get what you pay for. A nice Hastings Triplet Magnifier will cost more, but between the 10X magnification and the clear, distortion-free image I think it’s worth it if you plan to use it much.

A color display. Like the one you are probably using right now to read this. Although, if you only have a low-power magnifier, it will be easier to see how it works if you use a color television instead of a computer display.

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

Look at the test pattern picture below with your magnifier. (Click on the photo to view the full-size version.)

You can also turn on your TV to something that shows different colors and look at that.

What you will see is that, close up, the screen really only shows three colors: tiny rectangles of red, green, and blue. The rectangles are so small that, from a distance, they all blur together and your eye mixes the colors.

To make different colors, the display makes the rectangles brighter and dimmer. If you look at the test pattern picture, you can see that each color is different brightnesses of the colored rectangles.

It’s easy, fun, kinda messy, and colorful. Learn about subtractive color combinations. Learn what colors make other colors.

Equipment Needed:

Liquid food coloring

Small transparent glasses (plastic or thick glass juice glasses work well)

Water

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

Put a couple drops of red food coloring in one glass, and fill it one-third full with water. Do the same with the blue coloring in another glass. Then pour the two colors together into an empty third glass – you’ve got purple water!

Some colors will be “stronger” than others. You may find that, for example, your purple needs three drops of red coloring and only one drop of blue.

Your food coloring set should come with at least three or four different colors. Experiment and find out what colors make other colors:

This is a good time to introduce the subtractive color wheel: there is a pattern to how the colors mix together, and there is a visual way to show it. A subtractive color mix is when you create a new color by mixing different colored liquids together. It looks like this:

See what colors combine to form other colors. Make a CD spinner to improve the testing, giving you a color combiner that can be reused with any color you want.

Equipment needed:

One CD that’s no longer needed (like a music CD, a “Free AOL CD”, or a blank computer CD)

Washable markers

A penny

A pliers

A gas flame (like from a gas stove, gas fireplace, or propane grill)

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

Hold the penny with the pliers. Heat the penny for thirty seconds over a gas flame. (A candle won’t work – it’s not hot enough.)

Hold the CD carefully, and use the pliers to gently push the penny into the CD’s center hole:

The penny will be hot and the CD will melt. Try to place the penny so it bisects the CD. Hold it there until the penny cools enough for the CD plastic to harden and hold it in place. (Blow on the penny, and this will take only another ten or twenty seconds.)

Now you’ve got something special: It’s a washable, CD spinner.

Get the washable markers and color the CD with a couple of colors. We’ll use red and blue in our example. Make sure to color so the whole of the CD is covered, and make sure your colors alternate frequently:

Now spin it!

You’ll see the red and blue will combine and form purple:

When you want to try different colors, it’s easy – the CD and washable markers come off just by rinsing:

Use this experiment to learn about colors and color combinations. And have fun spinning.

Oil and water don’t mix. Putting food coloring in oil, and letting it slowly settle into a glass of water will create “water fireworks”, little streamers of color cruising down through the water.

Equipment needed:

Liquid food coloring

Cooking oil

Tall glass

Short glass

Cold water

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

Fill the TALL GLASS with cold water. Don’t fill it all the way – Leave at least an inch of space at the top.

Pour about an inch of cooking oil into the SHORT GLASS. Put two or three small drops of your favorite colors of food coloring into the cooking oil.

Stir the oil/coloring mix slightly, just enough to break up the globs of color a little bit.

Slowly pour the oil from the short glass into the tall glass.

The oil will rise to the top of the water, and you can watch the globs of food coloring slowly settle to the bottom of the oil. In a few seconds, the color will begin floating down from the top of the oil mixture. It will hit the oil/water separation, and coloring will stream down through the water, looking like little streamers of color:

This experiment shows how oil and water don’t mix. When you mix them together, they’ll separate. The food coloring “fireworks” help add some pizazz.

Because we don’t want the food coloring mixing with the water – we instead want to see our colors streaming trails through the liquid – we use cold water. See why cold water will slow down the mixing process.

Learn about colors and color mixing with light.

Equipment needed:

There are a few options, depending on the personality of the child and the amount you’re willing to spend:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art Color Magic Puzzle is a puzzle consisting of sliding colored plastic squares. The object (and the fun) is to slide the squares around the puzzle, mixing and creating different colors as you do so.

The Magna-Tiles Clear Colors 32 piece set is a construction set of translucent colored plastic triangles, squares, and similar straight-edge shapes.

For larger construction projects or larger groups of children, a Magna-Tiles 100 piece set is also available.

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

This combining of different colors of light to form other colors is called additive color mixing. Using the Color Magic Puzzle or Magna-Tiles sets illustrate how blending different colors of light gives you different colors.

Younger children will probably love the Magna-Tiles, since they’re less goal-oriented; it’s fun just to stick the things together. Older children can be taught about color combinations, and would further appreciate the Magna-Tiles as well as the Color Magic Puzzle.

Learn about colors and color mixing while splashing around.

Equipment needed:

Crayola® Bathtub Tints, also called “Color Dotz”. If you’re really ambitious, get the Crayola® Bathtub Tints – 3 Pack.

Water. H2O. Lots of it. Favorite locations could be an outside kiddie pool, or a bathtub.

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

The Color Dotz bathtub tints aren’t much more than small dry tablets containing a little washable dyes. They fizz when placed in water, releasing the coloring and making your bath or pool a swirly, colorful whirpool of mixing colors. (While I haven’t had problems, and these are listed as “non-toxic, non-fragrant, biodegradable, non-irritable to skin and eyes, and easy-to-clean”, do a test run to make sure the tints won’t stain your bathtub!)

The benefit to the child depends on their age:

For very young children, this is a fun and wet way to learn about colors while playing with bubbling, fizzy tablets.

As the childen get older, you can introduce the concept of mixing colors, how “red plus blue equals purple”: Hand them the tints for red and blue, let them play, and show how the red and blue water mixes to make purple.

This combining of dyes (and paints and other liquids) to create new colors is called “subtractive color mixing”.

Older children could experiment with the fact that the Color Dotz are made primarily from sodium carbonate, sodium bicarbonate and citric acid. (The fizzing process is caused by water causing a reaction between the sodium carbonates and the acid. The gas released is carbon dioxide.)

For those older kids, there are a lot of fun things you can do with Color Dotz:

Load a balloon with a few Color Dotz, add water, and tie up the end. Stand back – the releasing gasses will expand and explode the balloon! (I probably shouldn’t have to say this, but just in case: DO THIS OUTSIDE!)

Drop Color Dots on the ground outside, and run the hose or sprinkler. Follow the path of the water. Water tracing techniques like this are used by professionals that need to trace currents, detect leaks, flow studies, and for many other uses. (The difference with the professionals is that they use slightly different dyes – these are often flourescing dyes, for easier identifiation and tracking.