Halloween

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 »

Halloween is rapidly approaching! You can prepare yourself with some spooky science with just stuff you probably already have around your house.

After you finish carving up a spooky shrunken head or your Halloween pumpkin why not create a batch of fake blood and flesh to decorate yourself as well? If that's a bit too much you could just mix up some gooey slime and use it to gross someone out. Of course if you scare someone too much you can always say your sorry with some Halloween flowers. With a day's notice it's pretty easy to create some orange and black flowers  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 »

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 »

It's always summer somewhere in the world and this is a great activity that lets you create your own special flowers in the colors you choose. Gather up some carnations, some daisies or pretty much any white flower and some food coloring and have some fun coloring flowers. They make a fun science gift for anyone. If you really want to get crazy try using two colors on the same flower. This can get tricky since you'll have to figure out how to split the stem so each colored water travels up it's own section of the flower stem. The results can be unpredictable!  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 »

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 »