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.

Equipment needed:

Two measuring cups (one cup must be able to hold at least two cups)

Water

Sugar

One spoon

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

Make sure that your cup of water and your cup of sugar are filled up precisely.

What do you think will happen when you pour the cup of sugar into the cup of water? You might think that you’ll get a result of two cups of a water/sugar mixture. Let’s try it: Pour the sugar into the water. Stir with the spoon.

Note what happened: one cup of sugar added to one cup of water does not give us two cups!

What’s happened? Why does one plus one not make two? We’ve created a “solution”, and this has interesting properties. A solution is when you mix ingredients, and those ingredients may undergo a physical change as part of that mixing. In this case, our sugar changes physically. Much of it dissolves in water. This is happening on a molecular level – the sugar seems to take up less room, because it’s using the extra space between the water molecules! The density of the water is greater now – we have more molecules crammed into the same space.

On a big scale, this is how the Earth’s oceans are salty, even though we can’t see that salt. Water looks like it may take up a lot of space, but there’s plenty of room to share.

Equipment needed:

A glass. It should have straight sides, not angled.

Water

A bunch of ice

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

This experiment shows us how water and ice and volume and density have an interesting relationship.

Get a glass and put several ice cubes in it. (The glass should have straight sides – angled sides will get interfere with the ice and affect the experiment.)

Fill the glass up with water, almost to the top. Add a few more ice cubes. And one or two on top of those. You’re trying to get a pile of cubes suspended in the water, above the rim of the glass. The water should be as full as you can get it without spilling over the rim of the glass:

What do you think will happen when the ice melts? The quick answer for some might be that the ice will melt, and that extra water will spill over the rim of the glass, overflowing the glass capacity.

It won’t.

Ice takes up more space than unfrozen, liquid water. The ice in the water displaces the water inside the glass. As the ice melts, that water and the surrounding water move to take up the newly-available space.

The perceived volume of water looks different when a bunch of the water is frozen. Knowing these differences between water and ice can help you better understand how much you’re drinking next time you drink ice water!