Hands On Science
7/20/2012
This week we did 2 fun science-type experiments that I want to share.
We received a "Resurrection Plant" and decided to try it out. It came all dried up in a box. You take it out and put it in water and watch it come back to life. Supposedly it can live for 50 years without water or sunlight.
Well... here's the picture of what it looked like at the start, right out of the box and into water. Very dry and curled up like a tumbleweed.
And here's a picture about 1 hour later, as it uncurled, revealing green leaves. Ours stayed at this stage, never moving beyond it to the third stage that the box claims it enters - growing more green leaves and shooting them over the side of the bowl. It's been many days and it's stayed at this stage - looking alive, but not growing yet. We'll see what it does. I may plant it and let it live in my daughter's room - then if she forgets to water it, no problem! It can live 50 years without water! :-)
We had some tornado-tube fun this week. A tornado tube is a connector that links two 2-liter bottles. When you fill one bottle 2/3 of the way with water, connect the tornado tube and then tip them upside down... the water forms a tornado as it empties into the other bottle.
We had a lot of fun with this and have a book with dozens of different activities to do with the tornado tube bottles. One suggestion was to time how long it takes the water to empty from one bottle to another depending on the method. First, time how long it takes when you let the water empty one bottle with the "glub glub" method, the way it naturally empties. Secondly, time how long it takes when you make a tornado and let it empty that way.
Any guesses as to the results?
It took 12-15 seconds for the water to empty using the tornado method. It took 58-62 seconds for the water to empty using the old-fashioned glub-glub method. Fascinating!
How we enjoy hands-on science we can do at home!
1 comments:
Both of these activities look like so much fun! I haven't done one of those tornado tubes in ages (since I was little I believe :-)), and I hope your plant makes it into the 3rd stage!
Post a Comment