Table of at-home or in-lab experiments
I've only scratched the surfaces here; mainly idea fragments & initial research.
| Item | Lab investigation | Brief description | Features |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1a | Molecules made manifest | Explorations demonstrating H-bonding, polarity, hydrophobicity: weird properties of water... that drive life as we know it | water, oil, surface tension, charge |
| 3 | pH: the Power of Hydrogen | Make pH real by having students develop tools and taste the rainbow | Colors with cabbage; magic lemonade with miraculin |
| 5 | Tabletop photosynthesis demo: O2 | Link goes offsite to wonderful 'Exploring Life' page We developed an extension using food coloring to filter light to test photosynthetic efficiency of different wavelengths; 'one day' I'll post it! |
photosynthesis, oxygen, protocol |
| 7 | Milk, food coloring, detergent | Besides being utterly cool, this one isn't about surface tension. Students should be able to demonstrate differences; can they then reason them out? | |
| 8 | Fun with water | Science Mom (Jenny Ballif) | Surface tension seen several ways |
| 9 | Daphnia | I've only cultured them (they're robust!), but there are accessible hemoglobin & evolution ideas | Resources |
| 11 | Balance bands | Enabling students to discover experimental design, controls | PowerPoint |
| 9 | Pineapple chunks vs. milk, jello | You may know that a pineapple chunk will 'eat into' jello; this is a demonstration of enzyme activity. A more faster & more rigorous response can be set up by using milk instead! | Procedures |
| 50 | Evolution in a bottle | Leave a bottle of Pseudomonas on the counter for a few days and you'll reproducibly evolve a mutant form that takes over the surface... | References |
| 100 | Read, think, discuss | While these aren't 'hands on' activities in the sense of getting wet & messy, many are active, engaging 'minds-in' research-and-discuss activities | Resources |