01.21.2016
Written By: Zoe Christenson Wick
Our first day at AIMS focused on introducing ourselves and our mission to the students and illustrating the “black-boxiness” of science through the use of literal black boxes, the production of unexpected results, and the encouragement of sheer exploration. At various stations the students were challenged to try and explain phenomena that were mysterious to them at the cloud in a bottle station, draw conclusions about the internal mechanisms of a device from the external results at the black box station, and have a little fun smashing things at the liquid nitrogen station. It was a great opportunity to get to know these students and their teacher and to show them that they’re in for a treat for the rest of the year.
Cloud in a Bottle:
Materials:
- Soda/water bottle
- Cork
- Bicycle pump
- Acetone
- Powders: sugar, salt, cornstarch
- Food coloring
For this station, the students got the opportunity to form a cloud in a bottle. To do so, they dropped nail polish remover in a soda bottle, pressurized the bottle with a pipe pump, and then quickly released the pressure to create a cloud. They were excited when the cloud formed and even asked if they could try it at home! I like this experiment because it uses simple materials and the cloud is always unexpected. They also got to experiment with different powders and food coloring. The food coloring didn’t change the cloud color, as many of them expected. Next time I think the students should pair up so that one person holds the cork and the other person pumps air. The bottle needs to reach a high enough pressure so they need all the muscle they can get to hold the cork on tight. Overall, I think everything went well!
Black Box
Materials:
- Tied string boxes
- Cardboard boxes lined inside with a dark-colored and waterproof tablecloth & curtains glued on to hide what’s inside. Inside there was a tray to hold mystery objects (peeled grapes)
- Grapes, peeled
- Gloves
At the mystery box station, we had two different types of boxes: a box with a mystery object inside, and a box with a series of strings tied inside. We first had the students don gloves and reach inside the box containing a mysterious object (peeled grapes!), hidden behind a curtain. Many of the students gasped and squealed upon feeling the squishy objects inside. We then had them describe the objects they felt — what shape and size were they? Did they have any particular texture? What other things did you notice about them? Some students tried to sniff their gloves to figure out what was inside, which was another great idea (after being assured they weren’t touching something toxic).
The second box had 12 strings (3 per side) sticking out from small holes. The strings were all connected inside in some manner. By pulling on different strings and seeing what happened to the end of the other strings hanging out of the box, the students had to guess how the strings were connected. At first it seemed simple, but some groups were surprised to see that pulling on one string didn’t always move only one other string! Some of the strings were connected to multiple other strings, complicating the puzzle. Finally, a few strings were not connected to any others at all, which was confusing to many groups at first. After checking to see how close they were to figuring out the solution, we briefly discussed how science could be complicated like this: sometimes things are connected in ways you don’t expect, and sometimes there isn’t a connection at all between two things you previously thought were related!
An important goal with these first set of experiments was help the students develop the basic scientific skills to do more involved experiments in the future. The students were encouraged to employ the scientific method by forming, recording, and then testing their hypotheses while going through the experiments.
Liquid Nitrogen
Materials:
- Liquid Nitrogen
- Safety gloves
- Safety goggles
- Mallet/hammer
- Tongs
- Flowers
- Onions
- Grapes
- Blown up balloons
- Ping-Pong Balls
- Paper
This station is always a hit among all curious and exploratory people – young and old. Who doesn’t like dipping things in liquid nitrogen and seeing what happens? I found the most success when I began with the balloon. I asked students to make a hypothesis about what they thought would happen when I dipped the balloon in liquid nitrogen. The students were split 50/50 about whether they believed the balloon would pop or deflate. While that’s not necessarily surprising, what was interesting was hearing their explanations of why they made their hypotheses and how the results might support their hypothesis. For instance, the students who believed that the balloon would deflate thought this might happen because the air would escape from the balloon. To follow up on this idea further, I asked them to tell me what they would expect once I removed the balloon from the liquid nitrogen (if the air was truly leaving the balloon) to which they hypothesized the balloon would remain deflated once removed from the liquid nitrogen. We then tested their hypotheses. Half the students were surprised to see the balloon deflating as it was dipped into the liquid nitrogen. All the students were surprised to see the balloon re-inflating once it was removed from the liquid nitrogen. After receiving new information, the students were able to reassess their hypothesis and change it to match the new data. I think this was a powerful example of how cyclical the scientific process is, particularly regarding the formation of new hypotheses once you’ve collected new data. After this, we dipped other objects in liquid nitrogen and made predictions about how they would behave when smashed. The flowers were by far the biggest hit (no pun intended). It was especially interesting to talk about flowers freezing because they had just learned about the anatomy of a flower and how flowers carry water and sugar up their stems. As a result of this, many students were more interested in how the stem would react to being dipped in liquid nitrogen than the petals. This was one of many really encouraging examples of how these students used what they had learned in other classes and applied that knowledge to the scientific process. Overall, it was a great success.