Hi friends!
Scientists like to think about the world all around. Often, we talk about a hypothesis or an experiment as part of what scientists do. Would you like to try thinking like a scientist today?
Great, so first of all we need to think about something. Have you ever eaten gummy bears? If you are like Bookkitty, you bite off the heads & then chew the bodies up. BUT my son tucks the gummy bear into the little pocket between his teeth & cheek, lets it just sit there & dissolve. (Totally gross, I know). If we put a gummy bear into a cup of water, what do you think would happen? Try it out, take a scoop of sugar & stir it around in a cup of water. It dissolves! Do you think it would dissolve faster or slower in ice water? You just made a hypothesis (a prediction about what might happen). Let's make another hypothesis: we think that candy will dissolve faster in some liquids & slower in others.
We can test our hypothesis by setting up an experiment:
1. Get 4-6 clean cups
2. Put 1 gummy bear (or whatever candy you choose to use, just make sure its the same type/size candy for each cup)
3. Select 4-6 different liquids to test
4. Fill each cup with 1/2 cup of a liquid. In our experiment, we used tap water, salt water, sugar water & seltzer water. You could try oil, vinegar, baking soda water, water from the fish tank...it's up to you!
Observe over the next few days to see what happens. Did you notice anything intersting?
We watched our experiment over 2 weeks & found out a few *cool* things
Gummy bear in salt water did not dissolve, it pickled. And floated. Weird.
The seltzer dissolved gummy bear fastest.
Mold. Yes folks, mold grew on the sugar water & tap water. But NONE on the salt water. It took a few extra days for it to grow on the seltzer. Hmmmmm....interesting.
(mold is ALIVE!)
So guys, if you try the experiment & find the same results, we can begin to form a scientific theory:
Ok Curious Kids, hope you enjoy Where Do Balloons Go? by Jamie Lee Curtis:
Did you know that adding the suffix "ology" means "the study of," so when we study rocks, its called geo (earth) ology. Micro (small) bio (life) ology is the study of really small things. Yep, so instead of dinner tonight, I think we will practice Cakeology. Chocolate cakeology, to be precise...
Toodleloo, Kangaroos