STEAM, Part 2: Science

Ms. Maegan
May 30, 2016
3 min read

Who are my science lovers out there? When I was a kid, I did not like my science classes. Can you believe it? Now, I really don't know why. Grown-up me LOVES science! Maybe its because I'm the grown up and get to choose what science projects I do. :) Perhaps its because my adorable 5 year old LOVES science, too. Its a regular occurrence in our house to hear, "Mooooommm, can we play with vinegar and baking soda?"

(Spoiler alert! Do you know what happens when you drip vinegar in a pan of baking soda?)

Even though its not a surprise to see the chemical reaction anymore, he and his sister still love to play with vinegar and baking soda. As you can see above, I tend to split the vinegar into different bowls and add food coloring. That way the "eruptions" are multi-colored and way prettier. Ha!

A couple of weeks ago I was getting ready to throw away our pizza boxes from our regular family "pizza party," and I decided to check good old Pinterest to see if I could find a science experiment with pizza boxes. I was SO STOKED when I found the one that I did. I had been thinking of doing something like this with my kids a year ago and never got around to it, so I knew that I needed to pick this one.

Enter: Solar Ovens.

First, you take your pizza boxes and line them with black paper. This will help absorb the sun's heat (which will of course help your food to cook!)

Next, cut a flap on the top of the pizza box (only cut 3 sides! You need the flap to open and close), and line the hole with plastic wrap. I happened to only have Christmas colored plastic wrap at my house, so that's what we used and it worked just fine! Then line the flap with aluminum foil. Easy peasy!

Isn't he the cutest?! He was really excited to get to do this project. Did I mention that my 5 year old LOVES science? That face says it all. :D

Lastly, you put rolls of newspaper or extra black paper along the inside walls of the pizza box to help insulate the box. You want your food to cook, so the warmer the box gets, the better. We decided that the easiest food (with the quickest results) would be s'mores, and of course the kids didn't object. Haha!

**Now is a great time to write down your kids' hypotheses about what will happen.**

For our first try, we put all of the s'mores ingredients in at once. The results: a very runny chocolate bar and barely warm marshmallow. But still tasty!

First Try results:

For the second try, we toasted the marshmallow on a cracker first...checking it every hour or so. It took a good three hours to get the marshmallow to start warming up. We also learned that we had to keep adjusting our boxes to make sure the sun was beating down on the aluminum foil. It was a great opportunity to talk about the rotation of the earth! I didn't get pictures of our second try, but it was quite a success. The kids thought both s'mores were pretty tasty!

Science is pretty awesome. Lessons can include fun projects and experiments like the Solar Ovens, or can simply be a walk around the neighborhood.

Or even growing a garden!

Find something that interests your child, and run with it! There are so many ways to teach science to your children, and it's so fun. Learning begins in the home, and everyday lessons (like planting a garden) count!