It's miserably hot right now in the Mankato area and in much of the Midwest. Why not take advantage of the heat and use it for some fun homeschooling?
Here's five at-home science experiments you can do to take advantage of the heat.
1. Use kitchen ingredients to estimate the temperature. We all know that the melting point of ice is a chilly 33 degrees, but many pantry items have much higher melting points. Coconut oil is a perfect example of this, with a melting point of 76 degrees. Get a jar of coconut oil (you can find it in the natural section of Mankato stores like HyVee) and have the kids take it to various parts of the house. Is it solid or liquid? What about if you take it outside? Have them use what they know about its melting point to estimate temperatures in various spots and then see how close they get. If you like, take the experiment further and use butter, which is said to melt at between 90 and 95 degrees. Is there anywhere they can go where butter will melt? How much and how fast? What would they estimate the temperature is at that location, judging by the butter's state?
2. Compare temperatures in various parts of your yard. Ask your kids how much of a difference they think shade makes in the temperature outside, along with other factors like whether they're next to dark buildings or blocked from breezes. Ask them to estimate what temperatures they think various parts of your yard will be, and then put them to work seeing how close they were. Give the kids a thermometer (the faster the read-out, the better) and assign them the task of measuring the temperature in different locations around your yard. Does it make a big difference if they're in the shade or sun? What about sitting on a black driveway versus behind a white shed? Have them figure out how close they were to their estimates.
3. Have a melting contest. Freeze some colored water (or just grab some ice cubes) and ask the kids to place their bets on how long it will take to completely melt them outside. The winner gets a silly prize.
4. Test cooling methods. Have each child pick a handful of suggestions from 50 Ways to cool off without air conditioning and then report back on which ones they thought worked best. Challenge them to also come up with some of their own.
5. Watch some heat waves. We've all seen the rippling effect that extreme heat causes on the road, making it appear as if there's water up ahead, and the way the air seems to shimmer above a hot toaster. Robert Krampf explains why this happens:
As the toaster heats the air around it, that air expands. This makes the air less dense and so it begins to rise upwards. As light moves from the more dense, room temperature air to the less dense, hot air, it changes speed and is bent, just as it would be by a lens. The rising air does not form a smooth, bent surface as it rises. Instead, the hot air swirls as it rises. As its surface ripples and changes, the way that it bends the light also changes. This causes the light passing through the hot air to waver and shimmer.
Be sure to read the full article and explanation here. Then watch some heat waves with your kids and talk about the science behind them. Either go out in search of some hot highways or just use the toaster inside. I vote for the latter, followed up by ice cream. You can even use science for that and make it in a bag.
The bad (or good) news is that the weather forecast for Mankato and the midwest calls for another week of this heat, leaving you lots of time for science experiments to make use of it!
Cheer up, though, soon enough it will be winter and you can do those experiments that can only be done in extreme cold!
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