Monday, August 26, 2013

Kindergarten Science Experiment Failure

Let's start with the experiment that worked:
Congratulations, the wet bread in the test tube turned moldy.
 I didn't need to buy a science kit for this one as I am capable of letting bread mold on a weekly basis.

Yeast experiment failure #1: 
The first and second had sugar and yeast and water and were suppose to immediately bubble and overflow in time. The one labeled "c" did not have sugar and was suppose to do nothing. Guess I shouldn't have used that same stir stick for all three. Geez, Mom!


Yeast experiment failure #2: The balloon took three hours to blow up, when it was suppose to take 30 minutes. It at least popped in the end, so the boys thought that was cool. 

Yeast experiment failure #3: So this is when I finally realized that the kit came with bad yeast. Oh, by the way, this all came from "The Magic School Bus Germ Kit" off of Amazon. Don't buy it. That is suppose to be bread. 

Another reason not to buy the germ kit: It didn't even have the agar I needed to do the bacteria experiments. Thanks a lot Ms. Frizzle! (from Magic School Bus)

So I thought fast as my boy thinks we need to do an experiment daily. I vaguely remembered something about mixing oil and water to make a do it yourself lava lamp. All I did was oil and dyed water. I am pretty sure I was missing an ingredient or two. It looked cool for awhile.

Eventually it just looked like a lot of colored, wasted cooking oil. At least Tobin thought it was fun.


Here is another example of me trying to do an experiment based on memory. I was in the grocery store, and I saw some lettuce that was long and attached at the bottom, and I remembered seeing the pinterest idea of showing water moving through a plant. Only problem is, after actually reading the article, they used a certain kind of cabbage that attached at the top, showing the color moving in a really vivid and beautiful way. My experiment was a flop.
Go to the following link if you want to learn how to do it right:

Lessons learned? Well, my 5 year old already knows I don't know everything. I learned to actually read directions and ingredients lists FIRST.
Most importantly: Remember to just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming...they can't all end in failure! 

No comments: