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.

A simple experiment with a piece of paper shows an interesting aspect of how air pressure works.

Equipment needed:

Paper (Standard letter-size paper will work fine, though heavier paper stock like resume paper or construction paper will work better.)

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

Fold the piece of paper in half. Then place it on the very edge of a table, so that the paper “tunnel” points off the edge of the table:

Next, stick your face down near the opening to the paper tunnel. Blow a steady stream of air through the tunnel. Try to aim so you’re blowing down by the table surface, in the center of the paper (indicated by the blue arrow).

The paper will bend down towards the table! If the paper is stiff, it’ll bounce back up when you stop blowing. If the paper is flimsy (like regular printer or writing paper), then it’ll flatten down to touch the table surface, and will stay there.

What’s happening here? When you blow air through the paper tunnel, you’re changing the air pressure inside the tunnel. The air pressure between the inside and outside of the tunnel was previously the same. But when you blow air, the air pressure inside the tunnel drops – it’s now lower than the outside air pressure. The outside pressure pushes down on the paper (as indicated by the red arrows), and the paper flattens.

One of the classic fun things to do with a balloon is to “squeak” it. This easy game is the result of some interesting science – air pressure and sound at the molecular level. This is also very similar to the way we use our vocal cords to speak.

Equipment needed:

Balloons

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

Blow up a balloon. Hold the mouth of the balloon in both hands. Stretch the mouth, pinching your fingers on the balloon while pulling them apart, as in the picture below.

As the air flows out of the balloon, you’ll hear a high-pitched, loud squeaking noise. You can adjust the tension on the balloon mouth, and the pitch and volume of the squeaking will change.

What’s happening here? Why does a balloon squeak when you stretch the mouth?

Stretching the mouth of the balloon makes a very tiny space for the air to flow out of the balloon. The air pressure of the balloon itself forces the air out the mouth, but because of the stretching, that space is limited. The airflow causes the balloon mouth (the stretched part) to vibrate. The vibration makes the noise.

Put your hand on your upper neck – right under your jaw – and hum. You’ll be able to feel a vibration, similar to the vibration at the mouth of the balloon. This is air being forced over your tightly-stretched vocal cords. Remember how tightening or loosening the balloon mouth changed the sound of the squeaking? Hum in a high pitch and feel your neck. Hum in a low pitch, and the vibration will change.

You talk using a similar method to the way the balloon squeaks. But the balloon experiment is a simple demonstration, capable of just a few annoying noises. Your body is a highly-developed machine. You can make noises a lot more impressive than any balloon.

This is a fun experiment showing an interesting limitation of the human body: follow the instructions below, and try to open your fingers to simply drop an object. You won’t be able to do it!

Equipment needed:

A pair of hands (yours will work fine)

A friend

A small, flat object (a coin or bottlecap will work fine)

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

Clasp your hands together, folding all fingers down. Then fold up your ring fingers. Have your friend put the small, flat object between your two ring fingers, like so:

Now, try to separate your ring fingers and drop the object you’re holding.

You can’t.

You may notice you can slide your ring fingers from against each other, but you can’t actually move them apart.

What’s happening here? This is an easy demonstration of some of the limitations of the human body. When your hands are clasped together in that particular way, your tendons are pulled so that your fingers can’t move outward.

Your body is a well-functioning, intricate mechanical device. When you look at a human body, don’t think of it as a single unit. Realize that inside, there are many pieces and parts that work together. And in this experiment, you can put the body in such a position so that some of those parts don’t work!

This experiment shows the concept of energy transfer, how kinetic energy can be transferred from one object to another. While a “drum” and “drum sticks” are required below, this experiment can actually be done with any drum-like and drumstick-like objects. A big inverted tupperware container and two big wooden spoons, for example, will work fine.

Equipment needed:

A drum

Two drumsticks

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

Use the drumsticks and whack the drum a few times to get a feel for the sound and amount of force needed to get a good drum noise.

Next take both drumsticks, and hit them together. Listen to what kind of sound it makes when one drumstick hits the other one.

Then hold one drumstick in each hand. Place one drumstick on the surface of the drum. Hold the other stick above the drum:

Keeping the end of the lower drumstick on the drum surface, bring the upper drumstick down and strike the center of the lower drumstick.

What happens? It sounds like you’ve just hit the drum, even though you’ve only hit one drumstick with another!

This experiment is an example of the transfer of kineitc energy. When the upper drumstick hits the lower drumstick, the energy from that hit moves from one drumstick to the other. This happens because the sticks themselves are touching. (Kinetic energy moves easily through small solid objects like the drumsticks.) But the lower stick is also touching the drum. So when the upper stick hits the bottom stick, the energy keeps moving: It flows from one drumstick into the next, then from the second drumstick into the drum.

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!

Equipment needed:

A bar magnet

Tape

String or thread

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

We need to identify one side of the magnet – put a piece of tape on one side. Tie the string around the bar magnet so the string is as close to the center as you can get.  When you hang the magnet from the string, it should be pretty well balanced. Hang the magnet so it dangles in the air. Here’s what we’re trying to accomplish:

Next, flick the magnet so it spins. Watch it spin. After a while, it will stop spinning, and one side of the magnet will be pointing north. It does so because that end of the magnet is attracted to the Earth’s north pole. You can double-check by spinning the magnet, or even moving it out of position and then letting it go – the suspended magnet will spin and twist and point back towards north.

The Earth’s north pole is not an actual giant magnet. The north pole is created by effects from the Earth’s constant rotation and its molten iron core. But the effect is similar – it creates a magnetic field so strong, it affects the magnet we’re experimenting with here.

You can experiment to get an idea of size and strength of the Earth’s magnetic field: Take a piece of iron or steel, or any metal you can find that will attract to your magnet. Bring it underneath your suspended bar magnet. When you get close enough, the magnet will bend down and reach for your piece of metal:

Now move your piece of metal away. The bar magnet will turn back into a compass again: it will relax and reorient to point towards the Earth’s north pole. The Earth’s magnetic poles are so strong, and the magnetic fields so large, they affect magnets like your compass from anywhere on Earth!

Learn about buoyancy. This lab answers the question: Why is it easier to swim in the ocean than in a lake?

Equipment needed:

An egg (it can be either raw or hard-boiled. It needs to be fresh.)

A tall, wide glass

Water

A long-handled spoon for stirring in the glass

Salt (you’ll need a lot of salt, more than what’s contained in a salt shaker. If you’re purchasing for a group or class, shop for salt in bulk.)

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

Carefully place your egg in the empty glass. Then fill the glass with water, leaving an inch or so of space at the top. You’ll see that the egg sinks, and rests happily at the bottom of the glass. (If your egg floats in the fresh water, that’s an indicator of an old egg. Use a fresh egg instead.)

Now that we’ve seen the egg sink, use the spoon to carefully lift the egg out of the glass.

Next, pour salt into the water.

Keep pouring.

And pour a little more.

Stir it.

The goal is to get so much salt in the water, that you can’t dissolve any more. Stir the mixture for a while. If you lift the spoon out after stirring, and still see a few salt grains clinging to it, your salt-water mixture is ready.

Using the spoon, carefully lower the egg into the water. If you’ve mixed enough salt in the water, the egg will now float!

The egg floats in the salt water because it has more buoyancy in salt water than in fresh water. Buoyancy is determined by the density of the water. Fresh water is not very dense. Things will sink easier in fresh water. Salt water consists of water mixed with a LOT of salt. That salt adds density to the water. So when you put the egg in salt water, the heavier density of the water causes the egg to float.

This is why it’s easier to swim in the ocean than in a lake: the ocean is salt water, a freshwater lake is not. Your body is more buoyant in the higher-density salt water, and you can more easily float.

Learn about inertia and Newton’s First Law of Motion.

Equipment needed:

One raw egg (or more, if you’re clumsy!)

One hard-boiled egg

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

This experiment is often described as “how to tell a raw egg from a hard-boiled egg without breaking them”. You simply spin both eggs on a flat surface: The egg that spins smoothly is the hard-boiled egg. The egg that wobbles as it spins is the raw egg.

What’s happening here? The hard-boiled egg spins smoothly and quickly because the egg inside is solid. The raw egg wobbles as it spins because the egg inside is liquid. As the egg is spinning, the liquid inside sloshes around, and affects the egg’s spin. Why does this affect the egg’s spin? It’s because of Newton’s First Law of Motion. This law states: “An object in motion remains in motion, unless acted upon by an external force.” Put more simply, Newton’s First Law says, “if something is moving, it’ll keep moving unless something else stops it”.

Here we have our example of Newton’s First Law of Motion, the raw egg. Try this: give the raw egg a good spin. As it spins, stop the egg by quickly putting your finger on the top of the egg. Then just as quickly, remove your finger. This action should be fast, perhaps half a second at most. When you remove your finger, you’ll see the stopped egg begin spinning again!

The egg keeps spinning after we stop it because the liquid egg inside remains in motion. The shell of the egg was stopped by our finger, but the inside keeps on going.

Within seconds, the raw egg will stop spinning. This is because of many factors: The friction between the table and egg will slow the egg and eventually stop it. Though the liquid inside the egg keeps moving, it too slows down and stops because the hard shell contains the liquid and eventually prevents it from moving.

Refraction happens when when light is bent as it moves. Instead of going in a straight line, it appears to turn, curve or bend.

Equipment Needed:

A flashlight

A glass (it should be as wide or wider than the head of your flashlight)

Water

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

To make light refract, you need to pass it through two different substances. In this example, the two substances are air and water. Fill up a glass of water. Place a flashlight flat on a table, so that the light is pointed straight through the center of the glass. Turn on the flashlight, turn out the lights, and you’ll see light passing straight through the glass, like this:

Next, simply roll the flashlight. Don’t actually turn it, just move the entire flashlight up and down in relation to the glass. Even though the light is still coming straight out of the flashlight, the light will be refracted (bent) as it moves through the water in the glass. The refractive qualities of the water (and the shape of the water within the glass) will bend the light as you see in the picture below:

Looking at this with better lighting, examine the red line in the picture below. That indicates the path the light takes as it’s refracted. Again, this is caused by the water refracting the light, and the position of the flashlight in relation to the glass:

You’ve probably seen this happen at a restaurant. You’re sipping your drink through a straw. You glance at your glass at just the right angle, and the straw looks “broken”. Let’s take a closer look at what’s happening.

Equipment Needed:

A straw (a stick, a pencil, a chopstick, or any other straight object will work fine)

A tall glass

Water

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

Fill the glass halfway with water. Put the straw in it. If you place the straw at just the right angle, and view the glass from just the right angle, the straw will appear “broken”:

What’s happening here?

This experiment demonstrates the concept of refraction. Refraction happens when light is bent – it doesn’t always travel in a straight line. The water in the glass bends light as you’re looking at it. So part of the straw looks like it’s in a different place.

This strange appearance of the straw is because of what is called the “refractive index”. The refractive index is the measurement of slowdown light (and other waveform energy) encounters when in a particular substance. The refractive index of water is different than the refractive index of air. Light behaves differently when in water versus air. To us, this simply looks like our straw is bent or broken.

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:

A simple demonstation of “muscle memory” and the subconscious actions of our body.

Equipment Needed:

You

A doorframe or wall

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

This experiment will assume you’re standing in a doorframe, but really the experiment will work fine with any heavy, large object.

Stand inside the doorframe. Stand normally, but stand so that one arm is directly against the wall. Push outward – away from your body – with your wall-touching arm, as if you wanted to flap your arm. It will be stopped by the doorframe, as in the picture below:

Now, keep pushing! And push some more! Count slowly to thirty, pushing your arm out against the wall the entire time.

Then, step away from the wall. Relax both your arms, and let them hang limp at your side.

But watch what happens: the arm you were pressing against the wall will start to rise!

What’s happening here? Your muscles have memory: when you press your arm against the wall for so long, your arm muscles get so used to pushing against the wall, they continue to push even after you’ve stepped away. And since your arm muscles are still pushing, your arm raises up into the air. Evenutally, your arm muscles will realize you are no longer pushing, and your arm will lower back down.

A leaky bottle can teach how air pressure works, and how strong air pressure is – It can stop water from flowing!

Equipment needed:

One clear, plastic bottle with an airtight top (a two-liter pop bottle with a screw-on cap works great)

A large bowl (something big enough to hold all the water that may be in the plastic bottle)

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

Punch very small holes (less than a quarter-inch diameter) in the bottom of the plastic bottle. Three holes works well.

Fill the bottle with water. The holes will start draining the water, so you may have to turn the water on full blast to fill, or use one hand to cover the holes.

When the bottle is full, screw the top on tight. If you lift the bottle up, there may be a few drips, but after a few seconds no water should flow out. (If water still glugs out of the bottle at this point, you’ve made the holes too big.)

Unscrew the cap.

The water will start pouring out the holes in the bottom.

If you screw the cap back on before the water drains, the water flow will stop.

What’s happening here? Many things, but one big one is air pressure. With the cap screwed on, the water stays in the bottle. This is because the water needs more air to take the space at the top of the bottle, to replace the space previously filled by the water. Gravity is pulling on the water, and the water tries to flow out, but needs the air to expand and take up more space to do so. The air pressure isn’t changed – the air won’t expand or contract from the very small pull of the water. The air pressure is stronger than the pull of gravity. So the water stays in place.

If the cap is screwed on, there is nothing to replace any space used by the water. So the water doesn’t move. Unscrewing the cap allows air to flow into the bottle, which allows the water to pour out from the bottom, and the air takes up more and more space at the top.

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.

This experiment shows how to separate pepper and salt using a balloon and static electricity.

Equipment needed:

One balloon (a comb and some plastic hairbrushes will also work well for this, particularly if you’re worried about the balloon bursting)

A cloth (wool will work best)

Salt

Pepper

Safety glasses

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

Wear safety glasses for this experiment – you don’t want salt or pepper getting in your eyes.

Mix a small pile of salt and pepper. The challenge here is to separate the salt from the pepper.

It’s easy if you have a balloon: inflate the balloon. Rub the cloth on the balloon, and the balloon will become negatively charged. This means the balloon will become attracted to objects that have a different charge. Luckily for us, the salt and pepper fall into this category.

After charging the balloon, hold it above the salt and pepper mixture and slowly bring it closer. You’ll see the pepper fly up and stick to the balloon, leaving the salt behind. The salt stays put because it’s heavier than the pepper. This is why you want to move slowly, because if you move too close too fast, the salt will also fly up and attach to the balloon.

When you’re done, you can either wipe or wash the balloon off to remove the pepper. Don’t pop it, or you’ll get pepper everywhere! 

You can direct the flow of water without touching it. All you need is a little static electricity.

Equipment needed:

One balloon

A sink with running water

A cloth (wool will work best)

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

Turn on the water faucet. Make sure the water flow comes out very slow and thin (a thinner water stream is easier to redirect).

Rub the balloon with the cloth to build up a static electric charge.

Bring the balloon close to the water stream. When the balloon gets close to the water, the negative static charge will attract the water and “pull” the stream towards the balloon:

The charge will wear off within a few seconds, so the effect won’t last long!

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.

This experiment shows the concept of energy transfer, how kinetic energy can be transferred from one object to another. It also demonstrates a basic concept of Einstein’s E=mc² equation, about mass-energy equivalence.

Equipment needed:

A basketball

A tennis ball

A superball (or any very small, light, solid rubber ball)

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

Go outside with all your balls, and find some solid, hard ground, like a driveway or playground.

Drop the basketball. Do the same with the tennis ball and superball. Watch how high they bounce.

Now, take the basketball and the superball. Place the superball on top of the basketball. Making sure the balls are still touching, drop them on the pavement. The balls will hopefully hit the ground while still touching. And when they hit, watch the bounce! The smaller ball will fly up a lot higher than usual, and the basketball won’t bounce as high.

This Science Lab experiment shows us how kinetic energy can be transferred from one object (the basketball) to another (the smaller ball). During the drop and pavement bounce, the basketball’s energy is transferred to the smaller ball: the smaller ball flies high, and the basketball – with less energy now – doesn’t bounce as high.

This also is a good example of “mass-energy equivalence“. Einstein’s E=mc² equation tells us that the amount of energy something has is related to its mass. The basketball is more massive than the smaller balls, so it has more energy to transfer to those balls. This is why they fly up in the air much higher – during the ground bounce, the littler ball just got handed a lot more energy, far more than it gets when bouncing on its own.

What is a chemical reaction? Experiment with baking soda and vinegar

Equipment needed:

Baking soda

Vinegar

A skinny glass

A plate (to catch spills)

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

There’s nothing like a classic. And an experiment with baking soda and vinegar is about as classic as you can get.

Get your skinny glass and put it on your plate.

Prepare 1/4 cup of vinegar and set it aside.

Prepare one heaping tablespoon of baking soda and set it aside.

Pour your 1/4 cup of vinegar into your glass.

Then, dump the heaping of tablespoon of baking soda into the glass. You’ll see a fizzing and bubbling and percolating and growing column of stinky, smelly soda and vinegar mixture:

This is a chemical reaction, where a combination of two different things produces a third: The vinegar and baking soda mixture is making carbon dioxide. This CO2 is the bubbles and fizzing you see.

Younger children will love this one because it’s always fun to play with things that fizz and bubble and move on their own. Older children will be able to learn a simple way to make a chemical reaction. They can experiment with the ingredients and presentation: What if you add more baking soda? Or use more vinegar? The glass we use is skinny and thin to better show off the growing, bubbling effect – how much vinegar and soda would we need to overflow the glass?

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.

Ants. They’re not just for driveways anymore.

Equipment needed:

An ant farm. While there are the traditional sand-filled ant farms, my latest favorite has been the Fascinations Antworks ant farm. The tunnel and farm medium, instead of sand, is a cool-looking gel. It’s cleaner. The tunnels are more stable, and are less likely to collapse from vibration or movement of the ant farm. The gel also provides food for the ants, so you don’t have to feed them. And the gel is transparent, so you can easily see the ants and their tunnels in three-dimensional glory.

Ants. You can get 25 Western Harvester ants for about $5. If you don’t want to mail order them, you can always dig some up in the back yard. Note that Western Harvester ants are medium-sized with larger mandibles. They’re great for ant farms – very visible and active – but they’re not for cuddling: They can and will bite (or pinch), so keep them in the ant farm.

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

An ant farm is a great intro into several biological and behavioral concepts:

There is, of course, the study of insects and ant biology. Watching them dig tunnels is fascinating. And not in a lava-lamp kind of way, but in a logical, workhorse way: Ants are directed by very simple rules, but those simple rules can produce complex results, like the complexity of the ant community and the tunnel systems.

Also make notice of the group effort: Like Egyptian slaves laboring to build the Pyramids, or herds of animals fighting off predators, an ant farm is a great way to show how group effort and cooperation can accomplish more than a single individual ever could.

And, perhaps the most important thing a child will enjoy about an ant farm: Bugs! What young child doesn’t like creepy crawly bugs? The ant farm lets them get as close as they want, without worrying the parents.

For more insectile fun, check out The Backyard Arthropod Project. The author’s project is to catalog as many arthropods (mostly insects and arachnids) as possible inside and around his house. Great for close-up pictures of arthropods, as well as interesting stories and information about each one.

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.