“Blood” Liquid Density - Halloween Experiment

sweetpea (66)in #steemiteducation • 7 years ago

For some teachers, Halloween is a nightmare, literally. Kids get over excited and start losing focus on their lessons, since it is all about planning who is going to dress up as what and who will collect the most candy. Instead of trying to fight the hype, why not take advantage of it and compliment your lessons with some fun Halloween themed science experiments and activities! This month I hope to bring you a “horrifying” activity or experiment each day during – these can be enjoyed by students in the classroom or at home as a family.

Before I introduce today’s experiment, here are some of my recent additions to my Halloween themed series of science experiments and activities:

“Blood” Liquid Density - Halloween Experiment

This experiment is a great way to explain the concept of density and can be done quite simply and easily with very few materials and ingredients needed.

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We confuse ourselves by referring to our weight all the time when we really mean our mass. (We should not say weighing scales, we mean mass scales!) Mass is effectively ‘how much stuff’ there is! Density is how much mass is in a volume (or space).

Think of a sock drawer (imagine your bedside table drawer). In it you can have 10 pairs of socks. That drawer will have a certain density. If you add another 10 pairs of socks (20 pairs) the density will change because the mass has changed (increased) but volume has stayed the same. Like wise if you put your 10 pairs of socks in a bigger drawer the density will change as you have now put the same mass in a bigger volume! - http://www.science-sparks.com/2011/07/13/archimedes-and-a-rainbow-density-experiment/

The Experiment

What you will need:

Water
Red food coloring
Treacle
Syrup (golden)
Cooking Oil
Measuring cup
Small objects to test floating (use fake eye balls, spiders, gummy worms to make it more “horrifying)!

Instructions:

1. Use your measuring cup to make sure that you pour the same amount of each of the liquids into a glass or jar.

2. Add a few drops of red food coloring to the water

3. Start with the treacle and then the syrup, next the now red water and lastly, the cooking oil.

4. Observe

You will notice that the liquids separate into layers, the heavier, or denser liquids like the treacle and syrup sink to the bottom while the lighter liquids remain at the top. If you had to shake the jar or stir it the liquids would mix slightly but would eventually resume their same position.

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The Science Behind It

Each of the liquids have a different mass of molecules or different numbers of parts squashed into the same volume of liquid, this makes them have different densities and therefore one can sit on top of the other – the more dense a liquid is the heavier it is. http://www.science-sparks.com/2012/09/07/floating-and-density/

If you took your small objects (make sure you have a variety) and place them into your glass/jar, you will notice that they will float or sink to the different levels of liquid. A piece of lego for instance will sink through the cooking oil bit float on the red water, a paper clip on the other hand will sink and float on the treacle.

This explains that objects with a higher density than that of each liquid will sink through the lower density liquids until they reach a liquid with a higher density than itself, at this point it now floats on the denser liquid.

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That wraps up today's "bloody" Halloween experiment. A tip: use your jars as Halloween Decorations - float creepy things like glass eye balls, plastic spiders, gummy worms and the likes in your density experiment liquids.