EXPERIMENTS DEMONSTRATION

1) Make a Paperclip Float

clean dry paper clips beaker water tissue paper pencil with erase

1. Fill the beaker with water2. Try to make the paper clip float...not much luck, huh?3. Tear a piece of tissue paper about half the size of a dollar bill4. GENTLY drop the tissue flat onto the surface of the water5. GENTLY place a dry paper clip flat onto the tissue (try not to touch the water or the tissue)6. Use the eraser end of the pencil to carefully poke the tissue (not the paper clip) until the tissue sinks. With some luck, the tissue will sink and leave the paper clip floating!

How is this possible? With a little thing we scientists call SURFACE TENSION. Basically it means that there is a sort of skin on the surface of water where the water molecules hold on tight together. If the conditions are right, they can hold tight enough to support your paper clip. The paperclip is not truly floating, it is being held up by the surface tension. Many insects, such as water striders, use this "skin" to walk across the surface of a stream.

2) Bend Water with Static Electricity

A dry plastic comb 2 beakers Water A head full of clean dry hair (this demonstration can only apply to visitors who are not wearing scarf) Small pieces of paper

1. Fill the first beaker with water and a slowly turn down the water to the second beaker until you have a VERY thin stream of water flowing.

2. Take the plastic comb and brush it through your hair ten times.

3. Now slowly bring the comb close the flowing water, (withoutactually touching the water) If all goes well, the stream of water should bend towards the comb!

4. Next, repeat step 2.

5. Then, bring the comb close to the small pieces of water. If the pieces are small enough they will jump off the table to the comb the same way that the water was pulled to the comb.

When you brushed that comb through your hair, tiny parts of the atoms in your hair, called ELECTRONS, collected on the comb. These electrons have a NEGATIVE charge. Remember that, it is important. Now that the comb has a negative charge, it is attracted to things that have a POSITIVE charge. It is similar to the way some magnets are attracted to certain metals.When you bring the negatively charged comb near the faucet it is attracted to the POSITIVE force of the water. The attraction is strong enough to actually pull the water towards the comb as it is flowing! This is called electrostatic.3) Lava in a Cup

A beaker 1/4 cup vegetable oil 1 teaspoon salt Water Food coloring (optional)

1. Fill the glass about 3/4 full of water.2. Add about 5 drops of food coloring use red for the lava look.3. Slowly pour the vegetable oil into the glass. See how the oil floats on top.4. Now the fun part: Sprinkle the salt on top of the oil.5. Watch blobs of lava move up and down in your glass!6. If you liked that, add another teaspoon of salt to keep the effect going.

So what's going on? Of course, it's not real lava but it does look a bit like a lava lamp your parents may have had. First of all, the oil floats on top of the water because it is lighter than the water. Since the salt is heavier than oil, it sinks down into the water and takes some oil with it, but then the salt dissolves and back up goes the oil!

4) Clean Pennies with Vinegar

* A few old (not shiny) pennies (this can be obtained from the visitors)* 1/4 cup white vinegar* 1 teaspoon salt* Beaker* Paper towels

1. Pour the vinegar into the bowl and add the salt - stir it up.2. Put about 5 pennies into the bowl and count to 10 slowly.3. Take out the pennies and rinse them out in some water. Admire their shinines.

There is some pretty fancy chemistry going on in that little bowl of yours. It turns out that vinegar is an acid, and the acid in the vinegar reacts with the salt to remove what chemists call copper oxide which was making your pennies dull.

5) Make a Simple Duck Call

One plastic straw Scissors Lungs (don't worry you already have them) (invite the visitors to conduct the demonstration)

1.Use your fingers to press on one end of the straw to flatten it - the flatter the better.2.Cut the flattened end of the straw into a point as below:

3.Flatten it out again real good.4.Now take a deep breath, put the pointed end of the straw in your mouth and blow hard into the straw. If all goes well you should hear a somewhat silly sound coming from the straw. The smaller you are, the harder it may be to get a good sound - sometimes adults can get more of a sound thanks to their bigger lungs. If you still have trouble, try flattening it out some more or cutting the straw in half.

5.Don't stop there - try cutting the straw different sizes to see how the sound changes, or make another identical straw and add the pointed end of the new straw to the uncut end of the first straw (to make the first straw longer) The sound will be very different, (more like a moose call) and you will have to blow even harder, but give it a try.

You see all sounds come from vibrations. That little triangle that you cut in the straw forced the two pieces of the point to VIBRATE very fast against each other when you blew through the straw. Those vibrations from your breath going through the straw created that strange duck-like sound that you heard.

by Zainurain Zainal Abidin