Yes, 3 is a bit young to start science fair projects, but Rai is in the Pre-Kindergarten class with the 4-year olds who are starting science fair projects this year. He chose the vinegar and baking soda project (where you mix the two in a bottle with a balloon on top), so we decided to make this an opportunity to teach him about the 3 states of matter (solid, liquid, and gas). After reading "What is the World Made Of," Rai chose 3 more powders (sugar, chocolate powder, and gelatin) and liquids (coffee, coke, and orange juice) to add a few variables and made a guess about what would happen when we mixed each solid and liquid together. What was his initial guess? All of the bottles would spill. After a few more questions about which liquids and powders might blow up the balloon, Rai finally decided that only the pink balloons would do something "cool." (We assigned different color balloons to each combination of liquids and powders, so we could tell them apart.) It turns out he was partially right. Both pink balloons were assigned to coke, and coke released some gas with each powder and partially blew up the balloons. Orange juice blew up two of the balloons and bubbled up quite a bit, and of course, baking soda and vinegar were the most impressive.
Here are a few pictures and videos of the project:
Vinegar and Baking Soda
Rai's Picture
I have to admit that I was skeptical as to whether or not Rai could understand what we were doing, but he can now tell you the 3 states of matter and says that coke gives you gas. :-)
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