KITCHEN CHEMISTRY COURSE - MOLECULES

We have started doing an online course called Kitchen Chemistry. It has been organised by The University of East Anglia. Today we learned about MOLECULES.

What are molecules?
Molecules are made of ELEMENTS.

WATER is made of molecules which are made of the elements HYDROGEN and OXYGEN.
SALT is made of molecules which are made of the elements SODIUM and CHLORINE. The scientific name for salt is SODIUM CHLORIDE.

We learned that there are gazillions of molecules all around us. There are more water molecules in one glass of water than there glasses in the whole world.

We learned today that molecules become less DENSE when they are heated. This means that they spread out. This is what makes HOT AIR BALLOONS fill up and rise. We made our own hot air balloon using a cardboard box, our toaster and a bin liner. These pictures shows what happened:

STATIC ELECTRICITY EXPERIMENTS

I found some experiments in my Usborne book that I wanted to do. They helped me to find out about STATIC ELECTRICITY. These experiments helped me to learn that sparks happen when some materials are rubbed together. It is all to do with ELECTRON PARTICLES that get CHARGED when you rub them. 

First of all, I did a balloon experiment. When the rubber on the balloon rubs against my hair it creates a type of electricity which makes my hair stand on end!

 

I then did another experiment using black pepper. I put some pepper in a plastic box and put the lid on. I then rubbed the lid with a hat made out of wool. Soon specks of pepper started jumping about and stuck to the inside of the lid. It looked really cool!

 

 

The next experiment I did was using bits of paper from a hole punch. I scattered the little circles on a plate and then I rubbed a ruler on the woollen hat to create static electricity. Wool is one of the best materials for creating static electricity. It passes electron particles to the ruler very easily. I loved the result of this experiment.

 

 

POTATO GROWING

We are going to grow our own potatoes in the garden this summer. We got some free seed potatoes from the Potato Council through the post. First of all, we had to CHIT them. These means putting them in a place where there is lots of light so they can sprout some shoots. We left them for about three weeks to do this and then we planted them in compost inside some black bags. I wonder how many pototoes will grow. Here is a photo of me chitting the potatoes.

The potatoes are growing really well. It took them about three weeks to get this big.

Here I am harvesting the potatoes in June. They tasted delicious!