Professional Documents
Culture Documents
365 More Simple Science Experiments With Everyday Materials PDF
365 More Simple Science Experiments With Everyday Materials PDF
Draw a star map of the constellations that circle around the North
What you will need Star and use it to note the changes in the sky from hour to hour.
Circle of cardboard
Flashlight What to do: To make your star map, copy the illustration below onto
Red cellophane and tape your circle of cardboard. Then tape the cellophane over your
flashlight. (The red covering will prevent it from being too bright for
you to see the stars.)
The Sky as At 9 o’clock on a dry moonless night, take your star map and the
Compass
flashlight outdoors. Turn the chart so that the month in which you are
observing is on the top. Hold the chart above your head and look for
the same pattern in the sky.
If you are ever lost in a
forest at night, you can On another night, go out at 7 o’clock or at 10 o’clock and match the
use the sky to find your star map with the sky.
way. Face the North Star,
which is the brightest What happens: At 7 o’clock you have to turn the chart one month
star in the northern sky, clockwise to match the sky. At 10 o’clock you have to turn it a half-
and you are facing north. month counterclockwise.
Look 180° across the sky
to the horizon. That is Why? The North Star remains at approximately the same place in the
south. East is 90° to the sky—far, far away, but directly above the North Pole. This is because
right and west is 90° to the Earth’s axis points to it throughout the year. All the other stars
the left. and constellations, however, seem to wander around the North Star
On a clear night, ask once a day, moving counterclockwise. As the Earth rotates, it looks as
an adult to help you if the entire sky is rotating, although the stars do not change position
practice finding the relative to each other. Since one turn of the Earth takes only 23 hours
North Star. and 56 minutes, a star seems to rise and set about four minutes earlier
than the day before. This adds up to two hours (30 x 4 = 120 minutes)
in a month and, of course, one hour in half a month.
To fill that extra space, the sides of the bottle are pushed in by the
force of the air pressure outside the bottle, which is constantly
pressing in every direction.
What happens: The quarter becomes a tongue for the bottle and
begins to chatter at you.
Why? When the bottle was put into the freezer, the air molecules
inside of it cooled and moved closer together. Since the air in the bottle
then took up less space, it left room for extra air to flow in—so it did.
When the bottle was removed from the freezer, however, the air
molecules inside of it began to warm up and spread out again. It’s a
great example of, “There was enough room for everyone to sit
comfortably in the car until we all put on coats and it was crowded.”
Suddenly there was no room for the extra air molecules.
It is that “extra air” that is being pushed out of the bottle as the air
12 Why Is There Air? warms that makes the coin move up and down as if it were talking.
The Wonderful Whistle-Stick
Can you turn a piece of wood into a whistle? Sure you can.
What you will need It’s a great experiment, and fun, too.
Wooden paint stirrer or
small paddle What to do: Use the hammer and nail to make a hole in the narrow
Hammer end of the stirrer or paddle. Put one end of the string through the
Large-size nail hole and tie a tight knot. Now, make two or three holes in the wider
Long piece of string end of the wood. You can put the holes all in a row, or make up your
own pattern.
Why? As you whirl the paddle around, the air passes through the
holes in it at a higher speed than the air going around the paddle.
When this happens, the paddle whistles.