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.

See surface tension in action – what happens when you turn it on, and what happens when you turn it off!

Equipment needed:

A wide bowl filled with water

Several index cards

Scissors

Liquid dishwashing soap

An eye dropper, or medicine dropper

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

Cut an index card into confetti: cut it into strips, then cut those strips into squares. The squares should be no larger than a half-inch on a side.

Mix up the confetti. Make sure none of the pieces are sticking to each other.

Suck a couple drops of liquid soap into the eye dropper.

Sprinkle the confetti in the bowl of water:

Then, use the eye dropper to squeeze one drop of liquid soap directly into the middle of the bowl. Once the soap hits the water, the pieces of paper will fly towards the side of the bowl:

What’s happening? When we drop the soap into the water, it breaks the water’s surface tension right where the soap landed. Think of the surface of the water as a balloon, stretched tight. When the surface tension breaks, the balloon “pops”, and pulls itself away from the break, taking the confetti with it.

If you want to do this experiment again, you’ll need to make sure that any soap is completely washed off any bowl you use. So either use a different bowl, or be sure to wash all the soap off the original one.

A “zoomer” is a small boat-shaped piece of paper that zooms around the surface of water using surface tension.

Equipment needed:

A wide body of water. At the smallest, you should use something like a bathtub. Bigger examples would be a puddle or a swimming pool. The water must be calm, however. If there are waves or splashes, the experiment won’t work.

Several index cards

Scissors

Liquid dishwashing soap

An eye dropper, or medicine dropper

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

Cut out an index card in a shape like this:

Notice the hole cut near the bottom – be sure to cut out that part, too. This hole is where we’ll drop the liquid soap.

Fill your eye dropper with some of your liquid soap.

Next, carefully drop the zoomer into your water.

Finally, quickly squeeze a couple drops of liquid soap into the hole in the bottom of the zoomer. And the zoomer will zoom! It will move quickly around, and will also stop fairly quickly, depending on the size of your water container.

What’s happening? The zoomer is taking advantage of surface tension – the “skin” that forms on top of the water, allowing small things (like bugs, leaves, and your zoomer) to float on top.

Dishwashing liquid – and every other soap – will break water’s surface tension. The breaking of the surface tension pushes the zoomer forward. The zoomer will continue to move until it runs into water where the surface tension is already broken, or until it runs out of soap!

Surface tension is a special attribute of water. When water is exposed to air, it forms a thin “skin” that keeps the water together. This is how some bugs skim over a water’s surface: surface tension keeps them from sinking into the water.

This experiment demonstrates surface tension. In it, we can join together two separate streams of water.

Equipment needed:

A used 2-liter pop bottle or milk carton (or some similar plastic container you can cut holes into)

A sharp knife (for cutting small holes in the bottle)

Water

A sink

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

Cut two vertical holes in the bottle. They should be about 1/8 of an inch apart. They should be no more than 1/4 of an inch tall.

Hold the bottle over a sink. Fill the bottle with water.

Water will start to pour out of the holes. If you’ve cut them right, the water should form two streams, and shoot straight out from the bottle. Adjust the cuts if needed to make sure this happens.

Join the water streams by “pinching” the streams together, right where they leave the bottle. Your pinch should push the streams together, mixing their water into one stream.

When you take your hand away, the streams will be joined.

Next try “wiping” the streams: with a flat hand, quickly wipe your palm down the bottle, over the streams. If you do it right, the single stream will separate into two streams again.

What’s happening here?

The streams of water start off separated, since the water is coming out of two different holes when you start the water flow. But when you “pinch” the streams together, you’re forcing the water streams to join together. And because of surface tension, the streams decide to stay joined even after you finish the pinch. When you “wipe” your hand down the streams, you’re breaking the surface tension and the streams once more become separated.