WATER MAGIC - WATER EXPERIMENTS FOR KIDS

Watermagic

Experiment #1 - The Disappearing Act

This activity demonstrates which substances really dissolve in water and which are only suspended in it. If the substance has dissolved, the solution (the mixture of water and the dissolved stuff) should look the same throughout. The particles will have broken up and will be spread evenly in the water. If the mixture stays cloudy, and the particles hang there and then settle to the bottom, you've made a "suspension" rather than a "solution."

Materials:
5 drinking glasses, 1 teas. each of salt, flour, baking soda, sugar, dirt

  1. Fill the glasses with cold water.
  2. Stir a spoonful of salt into the first glass.
  3. Stir a spoonful of flour into one glass, baking soda into another, and so on.
  4. Wait for a few minutes to see what happens.

Experiment #2 - Make Your Own Water Filter

This activity is one way to clean muddy water. In many water treatment plants, dirty water is first allowed to settle in a large basin and then is filtered through layers of sand and gravel. This filtering method copies nature --- rainwater seeping through the ground gets cleaned the same way.

Materials:
paper coffee filter, funnel, charcoal or fine gravel, sand, muddy water, a container

  1. Place the coffee in the funnel.
  2. Put a layer of crushed charcoal or gravel in the bottom of the funnel. Make another layer of sand above it.
  3. Pour the muddy water through your filter into the container. What happens to the water? Is it clearer?

Experiment #3 - Center the Cork

This trick is guaranteed to drive your friends crazy!

Materials:
a glass, some water, a cork

  1. Fill an empty glass almost to the top with water.
  2. Ask the kids to float the cork in the center of the glass. No matter how hard they try to center the cork, it will drift to one side.
  3. Gently pour in some more water so that the surface bulges over the top edge of the glass. Place the cork in the water. Presto! It moves to the center where the water level is highest -- on top of the bulge. The water forms a convex surface -- the bulge -- because of surface tension.