Scientist of the Week

A few weeks ago, Sydney was the "Scientist of the Week" in her class. This means, she has to choose a simple science experiment from a book, practice it at home and then present it to the class. The other kids will observe and are encouraged to ask "I wonder why...." type questions. I think this a very fun and exciting project for kids.

When she was 3 years old, we did an experiment in our apartment that shows which items float and sink in water. Sydney remembered that and she immediately decided she wanted to present that same experiment to her class. We tweaked it a little by adding two other components to it:

1. She had a bowl of water and an orange. She asked the class whether they thought the orange would float or sink. Then she used a peeled orange and asked the same question. She learned the concept of "density" and how an orange skin peel contains a lot of air bubbles that causes an orange to float. However, a peeled orange is a lot denser than water and thus it sinks.

2. She poured soda water into a jar and then put some raisins into the jar. The raisins first sank, but after a few seconds, a few raisins floated up. The teacher asked her why the raisins came back up and she confidently answered "because the air bubbles from the drink attached itself to the raisins and that's what makes it float".

Sydney learns a lot from various Science experiments in the class and now she often asks questions by saying "I wonder why?"