Simple Science

A few years ago, one of our daughters decided to do the celery experiment for her science fair project. This is such an easy project for kids to do. Kitchen science experiments are a great way for kids to learn. They are using materials that are familiar to them. This experiment uses celery, food colouring, and water which are all things that are familiar to most kids.

Hands on learning is so much more effective for retention. This particular experiment uses simple items that are cost effective and easy to find rather than expensive, hard-to-find materials. 

Kids are able to observe the changes happening and delight in the process.

Colourful Celery Experiment:

Supplies needed:

• celery stalks
• clear cups
• food colouring
• water

Instructions:

1. Fill the plastic cups a little more than half full with water. 
2. Add some drops of food colouring to each cup (one colour per cup) and stir.
3. Cut the bottom ends off celery stalks.
4. Place one freshly cut celery stalk in each cup. 
5. Invite kids to make a hypothesis. What do they think will happen? Depending on their age, they can colour a picture or write out what they think will happen.
6. Each child can watch what happens and write or colour their observations.

The colour will climb up the celery stalk through the capillaries which shows how plants pull up the water and nutrients. This is a great visual explanation. The results are more noticeable if you leave the leafy part on the celery. This is such an easy science experiment to do and a great visual aid for kids learning about plants and osmosis!

For older kids:

If you’re doing this experiment with kids who are older or are capable of a deeper understanding,  you can expand the learning into how water moves from the roots in the soil to other parts of the plant or tree such as the leaves and stem. This takes place in the xylem which are vein-like tubes similar to the capillaries in the celery. 

Here are some links for further research on this:

• Thirsty Plants: How Plants Get Water from the Soil to their Leaves
• Evapotranspiration and the Water Cycle
• Osmosis and Osmotic Pressure

For younger kids:

If you’re doing this with littles, you can get out a magnifying glass and take a closer look at the capillaries at the bottom of the celery. Note that they are hollow, kind of like little straws. Once the coloured water has risen in them, you’ll be able to see the colour at the entrance of the capillary. 

For her science fair presentation, our daughter showed pictures of the process, wrote out the process, and drew what happened. We put all of it on a tri-fold presentation board and she was able to answer the judges questions about what she had learned through this. 

When I started homeschooling and began to incorporate hands-on science fun into our days, it made me wish that I had had the opportunity to do more of that kind of learning when I was in school. I know that many schools now recognize the importance of this and are doing experiments in the classrooms. Learning by doing is learning that lasts. 

Check out some of our other awesome science activities:

Melting Ice Experiment

Easy Earthquake Experiment

How Fold Mountains Form

Layers of the Earth

In the past few weeks, we’ve been learning about the Earth’s layers (you can see how to make a Layers of the Earth model here), tectonic plates, volcanoes, and earthquakes. For the teaching on earthquakes, I wanted to give the kids a hands-on activity that would help them remember what they learned.This earthquake experiment is simple and requires very few items to create. This can easily be done at home and chances are, you already have the items you’ll need. 

Earthquake Experiment:

Supplies needed:

• metal cookie sheet
• wooden blocks
• Lego bricks

Directions:

1. First, have the students construct a tower on the cookie sheet using the wooden blocks.
2. Have two of the kids sit on either side of the cookie sheet and shake it as if there were an earthquake. Not surprisingly, when we did this, the tower crumbled with very little shaking and the blocks fell.

The metal cookie tray is meant to represent a tectonic plate and the shaking represents the shifting that happens with an earthquake.

Directions Part Two:

1. Next, work together to construct a tower with interlocking Lego blocks. Our kids, are always excited when Lego and school collide! Made it approximately the same height and shape as the wooden block tower. For us, it took much longer of course to make the Lego brick tower, which led to a discussion about how sometimes doing things the right way takes more time.
2. Set the new tower on the cookie sheet and have two kids sit on either side (in order for the experiment to be as scientific as possible, we wanted to use the same people so that they could attempt to create the same earthquake force). At first, they recreated the same shaking they had the first time and the tower stayed intact.
3. Simulate a larger, more powerful earthquake. When we did this, they became more and more forceful with the shaking, eventually lifting the tray up and banging it up and down as well as side to side before they were able to knock the tower over and dislodge a few of the bricks.

This simple earthquake experiment is an easy way to demonstrate to kids why buildings in earthquake-prone areas need to be built differently to withstand the fallout of the quakes.

Ways to expand your learning about earthquakes:

• Experiment to show the destruction of earthquakes along fault lines
• Seismic Waves
• Tectonic Plates, Earthquakes, and Volcanos
• What is an Earthquake?

Books for Kids about Earthquakes:

Why Do Tectonic Plates Crash and Slip? Geology Book for KidsEarthquakes and Other Natural DisastersTummy Rumble Quake: An Earthquake Safety BookEarthquakes! – An Earthshaking Book on the Science of Plate TectonicsJump Into Science: Earthquakes

You may also be interested in these other easy science activities for kids about the Earth:

Layers of the Earth Hands-On Science Activity

Making Groundwater

How do Fold Mountains Form

When teaching students about the structure of the Earth, this 3D layers of the Earth project really helps bring it to life. Using a hands-on activity like this helps kids be able to conceptualize what they’re learning and be able to retain it. This project is super easy to make with minimal supplies. Watch the video below to see exactly how to shape your layers of the Earth visual model. 

Layers of the Earth Activity:

To create this 3D model of the layers of the Earth, you will need just a few easy-to-acquire supplies. 

Supplies needed:

• 5 colours of modelling clay
• waxed dental floss

Directions:

1. Form a ball to represent the inner core. We chose red to represent the intense heat of the inner core.
2. Next, roll out a circle of another colour and wrap around the ball and roll gently. This next layer represents the outer core.
3. Each subsequent colour will need more modelling clay than the last. You will need a colour to represent the lower mantle, another for the upper mantle, and the outer layer for the crust.*
4. Once your ball of 5 layers of modelling clay is complete, use a piece of waxed dental floss to cut the ball down the middle, revealing all the layers underneath.

*Be sure not to press the layers too firmly together so that the colours don’t mix.

Ways to expand on this activity:

• Have your child draw a diagram depicting the layers and labelling them. 
• Set out books about the Earth for your child to peruse. 
• Hang up a learning poster in your classroom or home to give kids another visual cue.
• Make a Layers of the Earth Soap with the kids.
• Make some Layers of the Earth Pudding Cups as a related snack.

Earth Books to go along with this science unit:

The Ultimate Book of Planet EarthMy First Book About Our Amazing EarthThe Big Earth BookEarth and Space Colouring Book: Featuring Photographs from the Archives of NASA

You may also be interested in these hands-on science activities for kids:

Melting Ice Experiment

Human Body Sensory Bin

Colour Mixing Sensory Bottle