Oobleck is one of those things you just have to see (and touch) to understand. Sometimes it acts like a solid, sometimes it acts like a liquid. It all depends on how much pressure you put on it. This stuff is best experimented with outside (or at your neighbors house ... ) because it can get really messy really fast.  read more »

This is one of our most popular do at home activities! With just a few items from your kitchen you can create a bubbling version of a lava lamp. To get started gather up some vegetable oil, water, food coloring, a plastic bottle and some effervescing (the bubbling kind) antacid tablets.  read more »

Here is our recipe for slime. This polymer goo is similar to flubber and just as much fun. Try making both to see how changing the amounts of ingredients can make a huge change in the end produce. Just be sure you don't dispose of it down your sink or you will plug your drain for sure!  read more »

Flubber is similar to slime in many ways, sort of just a variation on the recipe. The slight change in the amounts of water, borax and glue makes a big difference in the final product. Try for yourself and check this stuff out.  read more »

Making a shrunken head for Halloween is fun and it only takes a few items to get started. To create a shrunken head you need just a few items. Gather up an apple, granny smith, red delicious, whatever, pretty much any apple will work. The basic steps for making a shrunken head from an apple are: remove the skin, coat with lemon juice, carve features, soak in saltwater, let shrink for 2 weeks, decorate with optional features. See it's so easy anyone can do it. Plus if you really mess up you can always eat the apple!  read more »

DNA is the blueprint for life. This simple experiment will show you how to extract DNA from fruit like a banana or strawberry. All you need are some fruit and some things you probably have around the house right now.  read more »

Elephants Toothpaste is a fun chemical reaction that creates a huge blob of soapy foam that everyone loves. You may have seen us do this experiment at COSI as part of our Extreme Science demonstration with super concentrated hydrogen peroxide. Unless you're a teacher or science museum it's difficult to obtain the 30% hydrogen peroxide needed to do this experiment. The peroxide you can buy at a drug store is only 3%. We recently have come across a version, from our friend Steve Spangler, that only requires a 6% solution of peroxide that you can buy from a local hair salon.

The basic science here is that you have hydrogen peroxide, which really should be called hydrogen dioxide, since it is just a water molecue with an extra oxygen added on. Hydrogen peroxide is H₂O₂, water is of course H₂O. By adding another chemical called a catalyst to the peroxide, you create a chemical reaction that releases the extra oxygen attached to the water molecule. If you mix in a little detergent you can capture that released oxygen in the form of bubbles.  read more »

If you're a Harry Potter fan you may want to try your hand at mixing up this color changing potion. Grab a head of red cabbage and a few items from the kitchen and you can cook up a potion that will change it's color depending on what kinds of liquids you add to it.  read more »

This experiment is almost like magic. Two colorless liquids are mixed together and after a few moments the mixture turns a dark blue color. This would be a great "experiment" to show at a family gathering or dinner party. Since the reaction always takes the same amount of time, you know exactly when the clear liquid will change to dark. Imagine walking around with this cup and seconds before it's about to change, you announce to everyone that you'd really like a darker kind of liquid in your cup. Bang! it changes almost on command! Now that would be a cool way to start talking about how a couple of simple chemical reactions are going on at the same time to make this "clock reaction" occur. This version of the classic "iodine clock reaction" uses safe household chemicals that most people have on hand at home.  read more »

This stuff is great fun around halloween, but who says you have to wait till October for some fun with fake wounds and fake blood? Mix up a batch and see how gross you can make it look!  read more »