Seasonal – Page 2 – Dr. How's Science Wows

Fun Friday – the Halloween Special – fake blood recipe

October 10, 2014October 10, 2014nao

Halloween is all about dressing up and sometimes you just need a little fake blood to really set an outfit off. We love making our own and with a little science knowledge you can get just the right consistency and colour that you are after.

You will need…

Smooth Peanut Butter
Golden Syrup
Washing up liquid
Red food colouring
Green food colouring

What to do…

This is one of these experiments that does not come with an exact protocol, just add the following ingredients until you are happy with the appearance of it, then apply and freak out all your friends!

When you think you have the fake blood just the way you like it do a little test on a white cloth or tissue and adjust further if necessary.

If you want to experiment a little more try making your own fake blood choosing your ingredients from the following list:

Smooth Peanut Butter
Golden Syrup
Washing up liquid
Red food colouring
Green food colouring
Blue food colouring
Chocolate syrup
Cornflour
Cocoa powder
Ribena
Chocolate syrup
Tomato ketchup
Brown Sauce

So what is happening?…

The trick to making good fake blood is to get the colour and consistency right. The food colouring, washing up liquid, cocoa powder, ribena, peanut butter and ketchup will all influence the colour of the blood. You want to get a dark colour, deep red colour so the chocolate and green food colouring will often give the red a darker effect.

It is not just about the right colour though, the consistency of the blood is important too. The cornflour will thicken the blood and make the colour more transparent, as will the peanut butter, syrup and washing up liquid.

The fun is in mixing and changing until you get your ideal fake blood, then apply and freak out your friends and family, all in the name of Halloween fun.

Enjoy!

Fun Friday – Glowing Monster Slime

October 3, 2014July 23, 2017nao

With a name like “Glowing Monster Slime” you just know this experiment is going to be fun! Just look at the photos if you need any convincing!

You will need…

two small bowls or cups
one large bowl
PVA glue (white or clear is you can get it)
*Borax Powder
Fluorescent paint (you can get non-toxic fluorescent paint in most craft shops)
something to stir or mix with

*You can pick up the borax powder in your local chemist (See note below)

What you do…

To the first cup add half a cup of fluorescent paint and half a cup of PVA glue and mix well.

In the other cup add half a teaspoon of borax powder to one cup of water and mix well until all the powder is dissolved!

Now for the fun bit… pour the glue mixture into the bowl then add the borax solution, mixing all the time.

Mix together the glue mixture ans the borax solution

After a while you can use your hands to mix and mould until you have one big lump of slime and there is little, or no liquid left!

You can store your slime in a ziplock bag or clean jar, it lasts a very long time once you do not let it dry out. You may notice a small layer of liquid separating off the top of the stored slime. This can just be poured off and the slime will become a little more rubbery and less sticky.

When you have finally finished playing just store away

If you have a UV light (black light)** you can make this experiment even more fun by checking out how your slime glows in the dark once the lights go out and the UV light is turned on.

So what is happening?…

Congratulation… you have just experimented with polymers!! In simple terms a polymer is a substance made up of lots of molecules arranged in long chains. If you imagine that the glue is like cooked spaghetti, it slides and slips around the place quite easily. When we add the borax to the glue it causes some of the molecules in the glue to stick together making the glue more rubbery and less liquid! Imagine if you took those strands of spaghetti and tied them together in places, the strands would not be able to slip and slide around nearly as much! The borax and glue mixture is just like your knotted spaghetti!

*Where can I get Borax powder?

In Ireland you need to buy Borax powder in a pharmacy. The production is a little erratic and the larger volumes are no longer available! You should be able to get a 100g tub in any pharmacy and it costs between €2 and €3.

**Where can I get a UV light?

This experiment is lots of fun without the UV light but the glow in the dark bit really does take it to a different level. My youngest nearly burst waiting for the night to fall so we could do that part of the experiment. If you are considering buying a UV light you should be able to get one fairly cheaply. I got mine from Maplin. I will be sharing lots more glow in the dark experiments, so if you do get one remember to check back here for some more ideas.

I hope you enjoy this as much as we did and please let us know if you do try it out!

UPDATE 2017: Borax powder is no longer as readily available in Ireland. here is one alternative, using very simple ingredients… check out this post on how to make silly putty.

Or check out our Ultimate Slime Guide for lots of fantastic slime recipes using contact lens solution or laundry detergent.

We are off to the Carlow Autumn Walking Festival

October 1, 2014October 1, 2014nao

It has been a little busy in the Science Wows household of late but now it is time for some fun! We are off to Carlow on Friday for the Carlow Autumn Walking Festival (I’ve been invited on the blogger tour by Green and Vibrant) and we are all very excited. Only two more sleeps! I wrote recently about my love of Autumn and a bit of the science behind how the leaves change colour so I think it is a wonderful time of year to hold a walking festival.

Amazingly, I have never been to Carlow although I do have some friends from there and anyone I have asked seems to rave about it. These photos are certainly selling the area to me (as if I need convincing to go on a family weekend away with lots of outdoor activities to keep us all happy and entertained).

Before we had children, myself and Mr. Science Wows often headed off on walks and climbs around our local counties. More accurately, he walked… I followed, blindly!… some times to my near peril and once down a mountain (one of the twelve bens) in complete darkness, with the reassurance that “it’ll be grand!”. Mr. Science Wows told me that if we did get into difficulty we would not be able to call out the mountain rescue squad as his mum was a member and it would just be too embarrassing.

Nowadays things are a little calmer but as our children get older we are able to increase the activities we can do together. That is why this weekend is so appealing. There are a number of walks available, for the novice to the advanced and plenty we will look into as the children get older. For now though there are a couple that have really caught our eye….

…A Walk on the Wildside with Mary White, environmentalist and walking enthusiast, will include foraging for delicious edible greens and fungi, learning about the native trees and mammals around the area, identifying wild herbs and checking out the flora and fauna of Kilbrannish Woods. This is a two-hour (7.5km) C graded leisurely walk

…Walking with Wildway Adventures – Green Walk 11, a two-hour leisurely walk with Una Halpin from Wildway Adventures.The 6km stroll will begin at Clashgranny Lock and take in the trees, plants and insect life along the Barrow Way and through the Borris House Estate, ancestral home of the ancient Kings of Leinster, the MacMurrough Kavanaghs.

Our weekend will include more than walking as there are a number of other activities available. We are really looking forward to a canoe safari trail on the river Barrow. We have dabbled in canoeing on previous family holidays but usually one of us was left holding a baby and waving from the bank. This time round it will be all inclusive as the event has been developed with families in mind.

We also plan to hire bikes to round off our active weekend. Our youngest decided to dispense with the stabilizers this Summer and due to his ~~stubborn~~ persistent nature, perfected the art in no time. We have travelled with bikes before in Ireland and in France but this time we will be getting five bikes for our family of five and we will all be pedalling under our own steam.

We love cycling as a family activity and the fact that we will be off road in Carlow is a great reassurance as we will be able to relax and enjoy the wonderful scenery knowing the children are safe.

It is easy to forget about all the wonderful activities available to us in our own land but Ireland really does have so much to offer. For us this festival will really tick all the boxes for the entire family:entertainment, outdoor activity, exercise and lots of nature. It seems that a lot of thought has gone into planning this event to appeal to the young and not so young, the novice to the experienced with plenty of fresh air included free for all!

For more information on the event check out these two blogs by Greenside Up and Vibrant Ireland. You can see all that is available on this online brochure or you can go directly here to pre-book your chosen events.

If you want to share or follow the event the hastag is #WalkCarlow

Coloured-bouncy egg experiment

April 23, 2014February 16, 2015nao

This egg experiment is a new take on an old favourite. We have made bouncy eggs before, we even made them fluorescent! This year we decided to add more colour.

This is a really simple experiment, you probably have everything you need already in your kitchen and it is guaranteed to entertain both the young and the young at heart!

You will need:

Clear malt vinegar, a glass or cup, a whole raw egg, food colouring

What to do:

Place the raw egg in the glass and cover with vinegar, making sure the egg is completely covered.

Leave overnight or up to 48 hours if necessary.

After this time, remove the egg carefully and rinse it in a bowl of water.

The vinegar will have dissolved all the shell of the egg, leaving just the egg membrane keeping the structure together. The “naked” egg will be soft and bouncy and a little delicate so do be carefully when washing any remaining shell off.

A bouncy "naked" egg after the first stage of the experiment — A bouncy “naked” egg after the first stage of the experiment

Next place the egg into an empty glass and cover with water, add at least two teaspoons of your chosen food colouring (we used red here) and leave overnight again.

The next day carefully remove the egg from the coloured water, rinse and pat dry (you may find your fingers will get a little stained from the food colouring but it will wash off).

After step 2 of the experiment our "naked" egg has a little more colour — After step 2 of the experiment our “naked” egg has a little more colour

Now you have a coloured, bouncy egg, but be carefully when you bouncy it…

What has happened:

When the egg is in the vinegar you will notice some bubbles forming and eventually a foam will appear at the surface of the vinegar. The eggshell is made up of calcium carbonate. The vinegar (an acid) reacts with the calcium carbonate (a base) producing a salt and a gas called carbon dioxide (these are the bubbles you see). The vinegar will keep reacting with the calcium carbonate until it is all gone, leaving the egg contained in just the cell membrane.

A delicate, but bouncy egg.

When the egg is then placed in coloured water the water will travel into the egg by a process called osmosis. The egg will swell a little with the extra water.

I hope you have fun with this one, and please do let us know if you try it out. We are currently repeating the experiment as my Junior Scientists want to see the eggs with different colours… we will keep you posted!

Fun Friday – Carve a Heart of Hope Pumpkins

October 25, 2013September 24, 2014nao

Continuing on with the Halloween theme we are talking PUMPKINS today; Of course in this house we don’t just carve them… Oooh Noooh… we like to see what else we can do with them… exploding, glowing, oozing… all in the name of SCIENCE!

But first…

But before we all don the lab coats and goggles I wanted to draw your attention to the Carve a Heart of Hope for Halloween Campaign, run by World Vision Ireland.

World Vision Ireland is a small part of the global World Vision organization, providing long term support to children in six African countries; Mauritania, Kenya, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda and Sierra Leone. They also provide emergency support where needed and are actively supporting the Syrian crisis at the moment.

This Halloween World Vision Ireland are running a campaign to raise awareness of the work that they do. They are asking people all over Ireland to carve a heart of hope into a pumpkin and place it in their window as a sign of support of their Survive to 5 campaign.

(Click on the links above if you want to find out more about this campaign).

Back to Pumpkins…

So what did we do with our pumpkins? Well first we carved them…

Then we added a bit of glow in the dark paint… because we are just loving anything that glows at the moment!

Then we turned our attention to the oozy, exploding bit…

If you want to try this at home you will need…

What you need:
A carved pumpkin (use a small one)
250 mls 6% Hydrogen Peroxide
2 teaspoons (or 2 sachets) dried yeast
2 Tablespoons warm water
Washing up liquid
Food colouring (optional)

What to do:
Place a small plastic container inside your pumpkin (large enough to contain 300 mls but small enough to leave plenty of room between the container and pumpkin lid). Carefully pour in the 250 mls hydrogen peroxide. Add a BIG squirt on washing up liquid. A about 5 drops of food colouring if using.

In a separate bowl mix the 2 teaspoons of dried yeast into the warm water. Carfeully add this to the hydrogen peroxide mixture inside the pumpkin, replace the lid and then stand back and enjoy!

What is happening:
This is an example of a catalytic reaction which really just means that something is added to the reaction to make it happen a lot faster, but that it is not chemically changed by the reaction. The something added is called a catalyst. The yeast is the catalyst it this reaction… it splits the hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen without getting chemically changed itself. The oxygen produced then combines with the washing up liquid to produce a LOT of foam!

What to do with the bits you don’t use for Science?… Eat them!

Don’t forget about the lovely fleshy parts of the pumpkin, you did keep them before you started experimenting, right? Here are some links to some great recipes, from some of my favourite bloggers, to put that pumpkin to good use…

Pumpkin Bread… a yummy alternative to Banana Bread; this one is by fellow Irish Parenting Blogger, Christine, more often found blogging at Awfully Chipper.

A double recipe of Pumpkin rice and Pumpkin soup by Dee over at Greenside Up.

Pumpkin Cheesecake recipe by Mona and the Chef, over at Wise Words.

Or you could just download the lovely Pumpkin Pack as part of the Carve a Heart of Hope Campaign for a great Pumpkin soup recipe from Donal Skehan.