Whoa… this is getting out of hand.  The quick chemistry demos I’ve been sharing have been stirring up quite the flurry of responses from our readers… and maybe now is the time to let a quick “meow” escape from the bag I’ve been holding…

Over Christmas, the team here at Supercharged Science has been working hard on a few, top-secret projects…  It all started because I was fed up with junk chemistry kits that contained wimpy experiments.  With a quick sigh followed by a sparkle in my eye, I realized what our  next project would be (well, one of them anyway!).  And now…. we’re wrapping up the final drafts of the first-ever Serious Chemistry Kit from Supercharged Science.  Where did it come from?

We went back to a stream of engineers and scientists and asked what their ‘turning point’ was – what really excited them into their current careers.  And we heard all kinds of things, but it mostly boiled down to this – someone took them aside or gave them some experiment or project so they could do real science.  There were all sorts of stories that we heard – from backyard rocket-powered cars to human-powered helicopter projects… but it all came down to a project or experiment that really fueled their flaming desire. And someone who believed in them.

So… we took a hard look at our own Science Mastery kit, and while most of the kit is stellar by our customer’s expectations, we realized there is a seriously weak link in our own Chemistry kit.  And now we’ve taken on the challenge and decided to do something about it.

We’ll let you know more as we go along. But rest assured that it will include rocket engines, nuclear energy, and explosions of some kind or another.  We’ll keep you posted on our blog!

More soon!

For the month of February, you have a chance to win a free science kit from Supercharged Science!  To be entered in our drawing, simply rate and review a product that you’ve bought from us. Write up to five reviews weekly and get added to the drawing for each review. Better still, your name will automatically be entered twice when you rate a product that doesn’t have any reviews yet!

One name will be drawn randomly each week – if yours is chosen, here’s what you will get:

February 1-7: Hydraulic Earth Mover

February 8-14: Hovercraft

February 15-21: Alternative Energy

February 22-28: Electronics Discovery Pack

Plus, one name will be drawn at the end of the month to receive a $100 gift certificate!

To be included, go to http://www.superchargedscience.com/reviews.htm, find the product you wish to review, and share your experience using it. Please include your email address so we can contact you.

Wow… after that last post, I had about hundred requests for MORE chemistry demos… so how about this one quick and easy way to turn water into wine?  Sprinkle in a tiny amount of sodium carbonate into the bottom of your test tube.  Fill your test tube partway with water (should still be clear).  Add a few drops of phenolphthalein (which is clear inside the dropper), cap and shake.

We’ve gotten a few emails from chemistry teachers asking for demonstration experiments, so here’s one we thought you could share with your students! This demo shows not only heat transfer but also a state change.

Mix up a saturated solution of calcium chloride in one test tube, and a saturated solution of sodium carbonate in the other.  Here’s how to do this:

Sprinkle in one teaspoon of calcium chloride into a disposable cup.  Add in a few tablespoons of water and stir, dissolving as much of the solid into water as possible.  Add more calcium chloride until you see bits of it at the bottom that refuse to dissolve.  Now pour only the liquid into your test tube… the liquid is now your saturated solution. Do the same for the sodium carbonate.

Do the test tubes feel hot or cold?  Pour one test tube into another.

Instant solid.

What’s going on?  Dissolving calcium chloride is highly exothermic, meaning that it gives off a lot of heat when mixed with water (the water can reach up to 140 oF, so watch your hands!).  The energy released comes from the bond energy of the calcium chloride atoms, and is actually electromagnetic energy.

Calcium chloride is hygroscopic (absorbs moisture), exothermic (releases heat when melts or dissolved), and deliquescent (dissolves in the moisture it absorbs and retains it for a long time).

When you combined the solutions calcium chloride and sodium carbonate, you formed the new chemicals sodium chloride (table salt) and calcium carbonate.  Both of these new chemicals are solids and ‘fall out’ of the solution (also known as precipitate). If you find that there is still liquid in the final product solution, then you didn’t quite have a saturation solution of one (or both) initial solutions.

HOT TIP: Never polish your tarnished silver-plated silverware again! You can safely dip it in a self-polishing solution – in a saucepan lined with aluminum foil, heat up a solution of water, one teaspoon baking soda and one teaspoon salt.  When your solution bubbles, place the tarnished silverware directly on the foil.  (Try a piece that’s really tarnished to see the cleaning effects the best.)

What’s happening?  This is a very simple battery, believe it or not!  The foil is the negative charge, the silverware is the positive, and the water-salt-baking-soda solution is the electrolyte.

The reason your silver turns black is because of the presence of sulfur in food.  Here’s how it works:  the tarnished fork (silver sulfide) combines with some of the chemicals in the water solution to break apart into sulfur (which gets deposited on the foil) and silver (which goes back onto the fork).  Using electricity, you’ve just relocated the tarnish from the fork to the foil.  Just rinse clean and wipe dry.

I received an interesting email yesterday, basically asking what rust is, and why it seems to grow like bacteria. Iron oxide is a fancy word for rust.  There are different kinds of rust, depending on the type of steel you use.  Given enough time, oxygen, and water, anything containing iron will eventually break down and corrode.  Aluminum, on the other hand, takes a long time to corrode because it’s already corroded – that is, as soon as aluminum is exposed to oxygen, it immediately forms a coating of aluminum oxide which protects the remaining aluminum from further corrosion.When iron rusts, it’s actually going through a chemical reaction:

Steel (iron) + Water (oxygen) + Air (oxygen) = Rust

You can do your own science rusty experiment with an empty water bottle, balloon, steel wool, vinegar, water, and salt.  Line up three our four empty bottles on the table, and fill two with water, two with vinegar.  Add salt to one of the water bottles and vinegar bottles.  (Label your bottles so you know which one is which.) Stuff a piece of steel wool into each bottle so it comes in contact with the liquid and stretch a balloon across the mouth of each bottle.  Let sit overnight.

You can speed this reaction up or slow it down by adding different things to the mixture.  Stainless steel has a protective coating on it called ‘chromium (III) oxide’ which does the same job as the aluminum oxide coating mentioned earlier. An easy way to remove rust from steel surfaces is to rub the steel with aluminum foil dipped in water.  The aluminum transfers oxygen atoms from the iron to e aluminum, forming aluminum oxide which is a metal polishing compound.  And since the foil is softer than steel, it won’t scratch.

Troubleshooting: The trick to getting this one to work is in what you expect to happen… the balloon should get shoved inside the bottle (not expand and inflate!).  If you can, get a whole row of bottles lined up (make sure you label them, or you’ll go crazy later trying to figure out which is which), one with water, the other with salt water, the other with sugar water, another with lemon juice, another with vinegar, another with alcohol… you get the idea.  Stuff the steel wool inside and cap each off with a balloon.  Check back over the course of a few hours to a few days to watch your progress.  Take pictures as you go along.

The feedback from parents that I get after a class sounds like this: “Anyone can understand it when you teach!” or “You really break things down into steps we can all follow!”  I think I’m getting know for a whiz-bang style paired with the simple, easy-to-understand approach.  Anyway, after that last post, we were flooded with requests asking for examples on how we’d show those principle in the classroom, so I thought the best way was to tell you how I teach it live with kids…  here are a few quick notes:

Higher pressure always pushes (hold the edge of a sheet of paper to your bottom lip and blow hard over the top of a sheet of paper)

Moving charges have magnetic and electric fields (wrap a nail with magnet wire and power the electromagnet to pick up paper clips, OR wrap thick wire around a skinny PVC pipe, insert a ‘bb’, and quickly connect-disconnect the wire ends to a car battery… just watch  your eyeballs on this one!)

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction (hold a balloon between your fingers and note which way the air inside the balloon goes relative to the balloon itself).

Four fundamental forces of nature: strong, weak, gravitational, and electromagnetic (The protons and neutrons on an atom are glued together via the strong force.  Gravitational forces happen every time you throw a ball (or just jump).  Make the electromagnet mentioned above to demonstrate electromagnetic forces.) Skip the weak force for now.

Happy Experimenting!

When I teach a class, I often hear the question, “What science stuff does my child need to learn?” Parents are wondering exactly what bases they should cover for their kid to understand science before they hit the high school or college scene.

This is a difficult question to answer, partly because it depends on what your ultimate goals are. If your child wants to just get their feet wet and see what all the fuss is about, then grab a couple of science kits and just play. On the other hand, if your kid reads every science text on the planet and is still thirsty for more, there are a few basics you can cover to be sure they are both well-rounded and happy about learning.

Scattered throughout the 2009 Science Experiment Manual are the ten main scientific principles kids need to not only know, but work with and understand. Once kids have wrapped their head around these ten ideas, they can explain why airplanes fly, how electricity works, why the sky is blue, and why socks disappear in the dryer.

Once you’ve worked through the entire 190-page science manual, you can take your kid’s brain for a test drive and find out just how much they’ve really learned.  Here are a few of the highlights emedded into the book:

· Higher pressure always pushes.

· Moving charges have magnetic and electric fields.

· Light travels like a wave but interacts like a particle.

· For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

· Four fundamental forces of nature: strong, weak, gravitational, and electromagnetic.

Once your kid hits college, they’ll learn about the other eight fundamental laws in science. Why didn’t we cover those in the manual?  Well, teaching six year olds about quantum mechanics, relativity, and the Heisenberg principle isn’t the best use of their time right now. Our goal is to excite kids about learning and give them just enough so they can stay curious about their world and seek their own answers through this curiosity.

Happy Experimenting!

Did you know that we offer free over-the-phone science workshops for your homeschool group? You can get introduced to the world of Supercharged Science with a live class taught by Aurora… all you need is a telephone and a computer. (You don’t have to travel anywhere, and it’s free.) We’ll teach you how to make several science experiments using household materials and new ideas, like Rocketry, Chemistry, Physics, and more!

Find out how you can get Aurora into your group for free, without having to travel anywhere! Click here to get the details.

Learn about thruster motors, create the chassis, and build the controller for these super-popular underwater robots that really swim in water!

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