Welcome Scientists.  I hope you are all keeping safe and well.  My plan is to find you lots of fun science activities to keep you busy.  If you have any ideas, please do email them in to me (Mrs R-J) and I will share them on this page.  I'd love to see your photos too. Lets have some fun.

Keep scrolling down to find new projects.

Why not take the "Save the egg" challenge from Science Sparks.

Build a vehicle designed to save an egg in a collision.  They have used K'nex, but you could use LEGO or even wrap the egg in different materials and drop it from a height.

Materials needed:

Boiled egg (it's less messy!)

K'nex/lego/other construction materials

elastic bands

cotton wool

bubble wrap

test track area

Instructions for crash test:  Design a car to hold the egg so it doesn't crack on impact with a solid object.

Think about how to protect the egg.

• Build a protective cage
• Add protective materials: bubble wrap, cotton wool etc
• Try an air bag - balloon
• Could you add some suspension?

Can you think of anything else? Would changing the type of size of wheel help?

Crash test eggs extension ideas:

Try a different method of protecting the egg and design a test to investigate which method of protecting the eggs works the best.

Does your solution still work if you release the car down a ramp?

How can you make your comparisons a fair test?

Don't forget to send us your photos!

Can you build a tower of toothpicks to support a chocolate egg?

What you will need:

Toothpicks or cocktail sticks (You could always use spaghetti or straws too)

Plasticine

Paper

Chocolate eggs

How to build a toothpick structure

There’s no instructions for this one, apart from the building a structure that:

Stands up with no extra support.

Only uses the materials above.

Can hold the a chocolate egg without falling over.

These are the structures my children built, what do you think?

Things to think about – building a strong toothpick structure

Shapes are a good thing to think about when building toothpick structures like this.

Triangles, arches and domes are all strong shapes and are used by engineers to make structures strong. Next time you see a bridge count how many different shapes you can see.

Imagine a square made from straws, if you push down it with fold down on itself, but a triangle won’t collapse unless one of its sides break. Any force applied to a triangle  is evenly distributed from the vertex to the base, this means triangles are much stronger than squares.

Extension ideas

Can you build a tower that is at least 10cm high? Or 20 cm high?

How about a tower that can hold 3 chocolate eggs?

Can you build the chicks a new house?

What else could you use to join the toothpicks together?

An old favourite of mine is Lemon Volcanoes:

You will need:

Lemons

red food colouring

washing up liquid

baking soda

lemon juice

craft stick

Cut the top and bottom of your lemon off (ask an adult to help you with this!) so that you have a stable lemon that won't roll away!  Using a craft stick mash the inside of the lemon to a pulp bringing out the juices. Place a few drops of food colouring into the centre of the lemon.  Add a good squeeze of washing up liquid.  Add a spoonful of baking soda to the lemon. It should start to fizz. To keep the reaction going keep adding lemon juice and baking soda to your lemon.

You can do this in a jar too if you haven't got a lemon to hand.  You could use vinegar instead of lemon juice. 

Think:

What happens if you don't use washing up liquid?  Can you predict what might happen before trying it?  What if you extra colours to your volcano, what effect will this have?

How to grow a cress caterpillar.

What you will need:

• cress seeds
• an egg box cut into segments
• water

Method:

• Place some seeds in each segment of the egg box.
• Place 3 segments on one plate or tray and 3 segments on another plate or tray.
• Add water to all, and place one on a windowsill and one in the dark.
• Don't forget to water frequently.

Question/Changes:

• How has light effected the growth of the cress?
• What happens if I don't water the seeds enough?  You could set up another experiment where you only add water to one set of seeds.  Both could be in sunlight.  What are the differences in growth and appearance?

Don't forget to send us your pictures and thoughts.

Why not have a go at building a marble run......

You will need:

Tape – you can use masking tape, but anything will work.

Cardboard tubes – kitchen roll, toilet roll etc all work well.

Other bits of recycled packaging – boxes, bottles etc – optional

Egg cartons – optional

Large box or sheet of card to build it against

Craft sticks

Marble or table tennis ball

Scissors

Build it!

The best thing about building this STEM Project is that you can be as creative as you like.

If you don’t have a big box to build it inside, you could also build them by attaching tubes to a wall, just make sure you ask a parent first and use masking tape so it doesn’t rip the paint off!