Science Club Highlights!

The last six weeks have been a whirlwind of fascinating, intriguing, and thrilling scientific experiences. Each week, the scientists were hard at work hypothesizing, problem solving, creating and collaborating with one another. 

We started off Science Club with Scribble Bots!

The scientists decorated their robot cup with pompoms, googly eyes, markers, and pipe cleaners. Next, they taped markers to the inside of their cups and were given a motor, two wires, a battery and an elastic band.

Their job was to create a circuit by connecting one end of the wire to the motor and the other end of the wire to the battery. Once they attached their circuit to their robot cup, the motor would activate, causing the robot to move around and draw a picture.

This was probably one of the most difficult tasks, due to its finicky nature, but it definitely paid off when we witnessed the motors spin and saw the robots drawing an elaborate design all on their own! 

“My robot made this!”
“It’s moving!” 

Bottle Rockets were next on our hit list. 

The scientists decorated a 2L bottle rocket with their team, using construction paper, markers and tape.

“I’m making fins to make the rocket go faster!”
“I want to cover the whole bottle so you can’t see the inside.”
“How do you spell ‘NASA’?”

Outside, we made the rocket ship fuel. The scientists helped me fill the bottles with vinegar and fold baking soda into a paper towel.

As we were waiting for the rocket to launch, we talked about we thought was happening inside the rocket….

“I see bubbles!”
“It’s going to explode!” 
“The baking soda and vinegar are all mixed up!”
 
When the rockets finally shot into the air, we were shocked and completely stunned at how high they flew! 

During the last week of October, the scientists made 
​Glow in the Dark Slime!
​
We all took turns measuring borax, glue, water, food colouring and glow powder (our secret ingredient) into a large container to create our HUGE batch of slime. At each step, I asked the scientists what they thought would happen when the next ingredient was added into our mixture….
 
“It’s going to fizz!”
“The powder will disappear!”
“It’s going to get sticky!” 

 Once all the ingredients were added, it was time to stir the slime! One scientist insisted that we needed to add more water because it was too hard to stir. We agreed, and decided to deviate from the recipe and add some more water and glue in small amounts.

 
Well… Our slime had a mind of its own and turned into a Jell-O-like substance. Some scientists squished to together into a round shape and discovered that it bounced! Then, we turned down the lights to see our slime glow in the dark! 
 
“It’s like a bouncy ball!”
“You can see it glow if you peak through your hand”

The next week, the scientists made Rubber Band Cars! 

Each scientist chose a car frame that was made out of popsicle sticks, straws and bamboo skewers. Then, they decorated their car with bingo dabbers, markers, gems, tape, pompoms and plasticine to help weigh down their car. 

When the scientists were done decorating, they sorted through a container that was FILLED with bottle caps to find the wheels that they wanted for their car. 
 
Shout out to the Dawn & Dusk families and staff who donated bottle caps for this experience! 
 
“I want BIG back wheels and small front wheels”
“Can I have all big wheels?” 

The next step was to press plasticine into each bottle cap. Then, I glue gunned the wheels to their car axles and added a rubber band to each car. 
 
Once the glue fully dried, the scientists were ready to wind up their cars! 

To celebrate the last week of Science Club, we made 
​Ice Cream in a Bag! 

Each scientist had a set of tools to make their very own batch. They had the choice between two flavours: vanilla or chocolate. 
 
The scientists added milk, sugar, vanilla and/or cocoa powder to their small Ziploc bag. 
Next, they added ice and salt into their large Ziploc bag.  Many of the scientists questioned why we were adding salt to the ice. They learned that the salt makes the ice extra cold, helping the ice cream form. 

The scientists then zipped their small plastic bag up tight and placed it into the large plastic bag that contained the ice and salt. Now it was time to SHAKE IT UP! 

After all of their hard work, the ice cream finally formed. The scientists were so excited to taste their homemade ice cream. 
 
 “WOW! This tastes great!”
“I’m drinking chocolate milk!”
“Mine tastes salty…”
“I need more sugar!” 
“Can I have the recipe to make it at home?”
“Next time I’m going to add strawberries!”

That concludes our Science Club adventure! Congratulations to the scientists who participated each week! Even though our time in Science Club is over, it doesn’t mean that we need to stop being the curious scientists that we are!