How to Make a Rocket (Scientist)

July 1, 2011

Tami O'Connor, Educational Innovationsby:  Tami O’Connor

A few months ago I had occasion to conduct two hands-on workshops for elementary and middle school teachers at the NSTA National Convention in San Francisco on behalf of Educational Innovations.  One presentation focused on film canister rockets.  This is a tried-and-true way to teach Newtown’s First and Third Laws of Motion and also brings to light concepts such as the four forces of flight; thrust, drag, weight, and lift.  It also reinforces instruction on 3-D shapes and 2-D plane figures such as circles, cones, cylinders, rectangles, and triangles.

How to Make a Rocket Scientist - Educational Innovations BlogI presented the lesson to the teachers in much the same way I would to my students.  The first thing we did was to brainstorm the features all rockets have.  After a bit of discussion it was agreed that they all have a nose cone, a cylindrical body, fins, and an engine.  I then handed out a paper template imprinted with the pattern of a nose cone and fins, a regular 8½ x 11 sheet of white paper, a piece of goldenrod paper, and a white translucent film canister.  Also required are scissors, tape, ¼ piece of an Alka Seltzer tablet, and paper towels.

The only canister that works with this rocket is the type that has the lid that fits snugly inside the canister.  The canisters that have a lid that wraps around the outside rim, however, will not allow enough pressure to build up inside the chamber.

How to Make a Rocket

The first step in building a film canister rocket is to construct the body of the rocket.  The easiest way is to curl the white 8 ½ x 11 paper into a cylindrical shape using the film canister (without the top) as a guide.  The paper can be rolled around the film canister and then taped along the edges.  The easiest way to recover the film canister is to blow into one end of the rolled cylinder, forcing the canister out the other end. Read the rest of this entry »

3 Comments | Chemistry, Elementary level, energy, experiments, High School level, Middle School level, Physics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Tami O'Connor

Newton’s Apple

May 28, 2011

by: Matthew Morris

Newton was a revolutionary thinker of his time. He is responsible for the three laws of motion that we still use today;

1. Objects that are not in motion remain stationary unless acted upon by another force.

2. There is a direct relationship between the force acted upon the object and the mass of that object times the acceleration the object feels (F=ma).

3. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Nobody before Newton could explain why objects acted the way they did, but with these three laws he quantified movement in terms everyone could understand.

But there was a problem with his theory; if all motion had to be caused by some force acting on it, then why do objects fall towards the earth when you release them from a fixed position? This free falling object was in fact free, meaning free of outside forces acting upon it (besides wind resistance). There were no visible forces acting upon that object. So why do they move downward if nothing is acting on it? But Newton explained this motion with gravity. He said that gravity is a force that the earth has upon all objects, something invisible that pulls us down at all times at a constant acceleration. There is a myth that the way Newton thought of the idea of gravity was when he was thinking about it under an apple tree when an apple fell on Newton’s head and at that moment, he figured out that there must be a force pulling the object down. This is also why apples are used to demonstrate Newton’s force, but no one knows definitively if the myth is true or not. Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a Comment » | College level, Elementary level, experiments, High School level, Middle School level, Physics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Tami O'Connor

Silicon from Sand

March 2, 2011

by: Carl Ahlers

Next time you step onto the beach, bend down, grab a handful of sand and admire the fact:   By mass 47% of what you hold in your hand is the element silicon. The rest is simply oxygen.  Remarkable!

Silicon is the second most abundant element in the earth’s crust (27.7%) – only oxygen beats it – and can easily be extracted from white sand (SiO2) in a spectacular reaction in the school science laboratory. Read the rest of this entry »

6 Comments | Chemistry, College level, experiments, High School level | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Tami O'Connor

The Flock Clock

February 6, 2011

Mike Rigsby headshotby: Mike Rigsby

Drinking Bird, Educational InnovationsThe normal way to operate a drinking bird is to have him dip his head in water.  The water on his felt head evaporates, leaving the head cooler than the bird’s body.  The liquid flowing into the upper bulb (head) changes the center of gravity, causing the bird to tip forward.  Liquid flows back to the bottom bulb and the bird returns to his upright position.  As long as an adequate temperature difference (head cooler than body) remains, the cycle will repeat.

Instead of cooling the head, why not warm the body?  If you place an electrical resistor below the bird’s body and pass current through the resistor, the resistor will get warm.  The warmth will cause the bird to bob. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Tami O'Connor

No-Pop Bubbles!

December 3, 2010

Ron Perkins, Educational Innovationsby Ron Perkins

At first glance No-Pop Bubbles may seem like any other bubbles.  While the bubble solution is a bit more viscous, one blows No-Pop Bubbles like any other bubble.  The small bubble wand suspends a bubble film which, when air is blown through it, releases small bubbles into the air.

These bubbles, however, are no ordinary bubbles.  No-Pop Bubble solution begins as a regular soap and water bubble solution.  Added to this solution is a small amount of a non-toxic water soluble polymer.  When No-Pop Bubbles are first blown, the bubbles behave like ordinary bubbles.  As the water evaporates from the bubble’s surface, however, an extremely thin plastic ‘bubble skeleton’ remains.  It is this plastic bubble skeleton which has the properties for which No-Pop Bubbles are named. Read the rest of this entry »

6 Comments | Chemistry, density, Elementary level, experiments, High School level, Middle School level, static electricity | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Tami O'Connor

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