Part X in a series of exploring the book, "50 Dangerous Things (you should let your children do)."
As my readers know, my tween and I have been working our way through the hands-on discovery book entitled, "50 Dangerous Things (you should let your children do)" by Gever Tulley/Julie Spiegler. Complete article. My associate, LA Examiner Evelyn Block, recently interviewed Mr. Tulley. Article.
"50 Dangerous Things" is now available to all Madison area library patrons, due to some "brave" ordering by the Waunakee Public Library. (Update: Two library copies are available, but there are currently 26 holds on the book. Place hold here.) In order to record your own field notes, just go ahead and buy the book now. It's for sale at Amazon here.
In this episode, due to a bout of adult amnesia, we inadvertently performed #48 of the 50 dangerous things - exploding a bottle in the freezer. To test our accidental experiment, we then performed the explosion again, deliberately this time.
#48 - Explode a bottle in the freezer. The resident "responsible" adult thought it would be refreshing to imbibe a very cold adult beverage following the draining task of lawn mowing. Said "responsible adult," forget said beverage which resulted in this inadvertent experiment.
When attempting to set up this experiment deliberately, here are some important things to remember:
- Glass is sharp. Take care; Enough said.
- A soda bottle with a narrowed neck works great for this experiment. Your tween can drink the soda and refill the bottle with water before proceeding. Note: Water is a lot less messy than other beverages.
- Place the bottle in a plastic container or inside of a paper bag to keep glass contained in one area of the freezer.
- Wait a few hours for the bottle to freeze and break.
Things we learned: Following the inadvertent bottle break, we hypothesized why the bottle broke where it did. We talked about water's power of freezing and expansion in nature; not to mention how it has widened the cracks in our garage floor during Wisconsin winters.
In our deliberate second attempt to explode a bottle, we used a squat little pimiento jar. Tween made a mark as to where she thought the bottle would break. Surprise result: NO explosion! Do you know why? You'll just have to try it and find out. For the most "bang," experiment with several different bottle sizes and shapes.
Are you interested in teaching your children to think outside of the bubble-wrapped box? Buy the book and live dangerously with your tweens! Stay tuned for further adventures...
Gever Tulley and Tinkering School.
Link to other dangerous articles here.
To receive future articles by Deborah Nies, scroll to the top of this article, and click on SUBSCRIBE. Your e-mail address will not be shared with anyone else.
Tired of going to the same old places? Want to take the road less traveled? Click here to enjoy Madison Hidden Adventures!
Comments