Let’s learn how to make loud sonic waves… by making an air horn. Your air horn is a loud example of how sound waves travel through the air. You’ll need to play with this a bit to get it right, but it’s worth it! The straw needs to *just* touch the balloon surface...

Sound is made by things vibrating back and forth, whether it’s a guitar string, drum head, or clarinet. The back and forth motion of an object (like the drum head) creates a sound wave in the air that looks a lot like a ripple in a pond after you throw a rock in. It...

Your voice is a vibration, and you can feel it when you place a hand on your throat when you speak. As long as there are molecules around, sound will be traveling though them by smacking into each other. What’s going on? The rubber band vibrates as you blow across the...

Is it warmer upstairs or downstairs? If you’re thinking warm air rises, then it’s got to be upstairs, right? If you’ve ever stood on a ladder inside your house and compared it to the temperature under the table, you’ve probably felt a difference. So why is it cold on...

If you can remember thermostats before they went ‘digital’, then you may know about bi-metallic strips – a piece of material made from of two strips of different metals which expand at different rates as they are heated (usually steel and copper). The result is that...

This spooky idea takes almost no time, requires a dime and a bottle, and has the potential for creating quite a stir in your next magic show. The idea is basically this: when you place a coin on a bottle, it starts dancing around. But there’s more to this trick than...

The triple point is where a molecule can be in all three states of matter at the exact same time, all in equilibrium. Imagine having a glass of liquid water happily together with both ice cubes and steam bubbles inside, forever! The ice would never melt, the liquid...

This is one of those ‘chemistry magic show’ type of experiments to wow your friends and family. Here’s the scoop: you take a cup of clear liquid, add it to another cup of clear liquid, stir for ten seconds, and you’ll see a color change, a state change from liquid to...

We're going to create the fourth state of matter in your microwave using food. Note - this is NOT the kind of plasma doctors talk about that's associated with blood. Plasma is what happens when you add enough energy (often in the form of raising the temperature) to a...