Educating Risa

This afternoon the boys and I attended a Mad Science workshop arranged by a fellow homeschooling Mom. We had a GREAT time—the boys chattered about it in the car all the way home! Here’s our mad scientist showing the kids some dry ice, with her flasks, food colouring, and other materials at the ready:

She began by talking to the kids about the three states of matter (solid, liquid, gas) and asking the kids to name matter of each type. Solid? “Rocks! Wood! This table!” Liquid? “Water! Juice!” And gas? “A fart!” yells Daegan, my 7-year-old. Sigh. Welcome to raising boys! I thought she handled it well: “Yes—that’s methane gas, and so is indeed a type of gas.”

She then had the kids get out of their chairs and squish together as molecules do in a solid. She asked them to dance and wiggle: not much wiggling room here.

What about as a liquid, where the molecules are a bit further apart? A little more wiggling room now:

And as a gas, with the molecules spread well apart, the kids danced up a storm:

After taking some dry ice around to each child so they could blow on it and see their breath, she brought out a warm quarter (it had been in her pocket). What do you think will happen when I put this quarter on the dry ice, which is about 100 degrees (Celsius) colder than the quarter? The quarter danced (vibrated—loudly!) and sang (made a weird, humming / squeaking noise):

Next, she prepared a flask with red food colouring and warm water, and dropped in some dry ice. This flask had an unusual shape with a spigot coming off the side:

She then went around the room, offering each child a taste of the dry ice vapour. There were several kids willing to give it a taste test:

 

I was a bit puzzled by the kids’ answers when she asked what they thought it tasted like: the most common answer—from these 5- through 8-year-olds—was that it tasted like beer! So much for the reputation of homeschoolers!

She then put a bit of water and dry ice in a film canister (remember them?) and the gas build-up shot the lid off with a loud POP! The second time around at this, the lid hit the ceiling, which is what my boys are laughing at here:

Next, it was on to another flask, this time filled with warm water, green food colouring, and a bit of liquid soap. Behold, soapy bubbles!

When you clapped the soapy bubbles, smoky vapour escaped:

She then gave each child a small cup of warm water with a piece of dry ice. The kids blew the vapour, and watched their “ice fish” dart around the top of the cup as the dry ice sublimated completely:

Then it was on to my favourite part of the workshop—the bubble shower! She filled a long tube with warm water and dry ice, then added the spigot part and dipped it in liquid soap:

Bubble shower! These bubbles were a huge hit with the kids, making the coolest smoky rings as they burst upon contact with the table. Some even bounced on the table a few times before breaking, and one rested there quite a while before it was popped by one of the kids:

Here is one that bounced on the table 2 or 3 times before breaking; the next three pics are all the same bubble:

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We then briefly revisited a water balloon that had been placed in the bucket of dry ice 20 minutes earlier. It was completely frozen on one side already:

And finally, the grand finale, in which she dumped all the remaining dry ice from her cooler into the big bucket of warm water. Ice fog! The kids went crazy:

It didn’t take long for the fog to get to the other end of the room:

The kids started diving under the table and hiding in the fog:

Here’s Daegan and Gareth, or what you can make out of them. It was at about this point that Daegan started running around the room yelling, “The volcano has erupted! The volcano has erupted!”

It was a lovely afternoon, and kudos to homeschooling Mom Marzena for setting this up. I know Mad Science also holds summer camps; based on how much fun the boys had (Daegan said it was worth missing his Homeschool Art class), I will be checking them out.