Spooky Science Awaits

Step into our haunted lab and unlock spine-tingling science — if you dare.
Each of the 13 experiments reveals a new trick (and treat) of chemistry, biology, or physics. 

The Halloween Science Shop

Every mad scientist needs the right gear.
From eerie dissections to candy chemistry, stock your lab with supplies
to keep the thrills (and learning) going.

EXPERIMENT #1

EXPERIMENT #1

Extract DNA

We begin our haunted science journey by peering into the very building blocks of life. Using simple supplies, you’ll extract DNA at home — the same molecule that makes you who you are. It looks like a ghostly string, rising from your experiment like a specter. Creepy? Yes. Real science? Absolutely.

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1. Create a saline solution in a beaker by adding two lab scoops of salt to approximately 25 ml of distilled water. Stir until the salt is completely dissolved.

2. Pour the saltwater into the paper cup.

3. Without swallowing, swish a mouthful for at least 30 seconds, occasionally scraping your teeth along the inside of your cheeks. It’s best to do this with a clean mouth.

4. Spit your mouthwash solution back into the cup. Then bend the cup and pour the solution into the test tube until it fills about one-half inch of the bottom of the test tube.

5. Carefully add two drops of the liquid soap.
 
6. Tilting the test tube approximately 45 degrees, use the pipette (or dropper on the alcohol bottle) to add 20 drops of the chilled alcohol so it slides down the test tube without disturbing the solution. Since it’s less dense, the alcohol will sit atop the mouthwash and soap solution.

7. Tightly put the cap on the test tube and very slowly and gently tilt it upside down then right side up three times. Do it carefully so as not to make bubbles.

8. Let the test tube sit undisturbed in an upright position for one minute. At this point, you should begin to see a milky white thread, possibly interspersed with bubbles, appear between the solution and the alcohol. That’s your DNA! After several minutes, the DNA should be suspended in the alcohol layer.

9. If you wish, insert your skewer or stir rod into the test tube and gently wind the DNA around it.

10. To save it, carefully scrape it into the small vial with a few drops of alcohol. Stored in the freezer, you can preserve your DNA almost indefinitely!



Genes provide the code for the production of a protein and control hereditary characteristics, such as eye color or personality behaviors. Proteins determine cell type and function, so a cell knows whether it is a skin cell, a blood cell, a bone cell, etc., and how to perform its duties.

When you swished the saltwater around in your mouth and scraped your teeth along the inside of your cheek, you were also collecting cheek cells. The salt helped them clump together.

The degreasing agents in the soap worked to break down the cell membrane to release the DNA, which is housed inside the cell’s nucleus. Gently mixing the soap and mouthwash solution ensured you didn’t break up the DNA clumps too much. The rest of the cheek cells remained in the saltwater-soap solution.

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NO CODE IS NEEDED. 

EXPERIMENT #2

EXPERIMENT #2

Crime Scene Science

Something mysterious is afoot in the Halloween lab… The candy bowl is empty, and sticky fingerprints mark the scene. Was it a ghost? A ghoul? Or your little brother? Time to put your detective hat on and let science crack the case. You’ll learn how real forensic scientists use chemistry, fibers, and fingerprints to solve mysteries — one clue at a time.

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Note: Fingerprint powder is very messy, so practice with it in a controlled area. Start out dusting a microscope slide to get the technique down and then you can move on to dusting other surfaces in your house.

1. Touch a microscope slide with your finger a few times to leave prints. (If you want, use lotion on your hands for more obvious prints.) Set the slide on a piece of paper before dusting, for easier cleanup.

2. Sprinkle a little bit of powder on the microscope slide, then gently swipe off the excess powder with the soft brush, being careful to leave the fingerprint intact. This may take some practice to get right.

3. Stick a piece of clear tape over the fingerprint firmly, and then lift it up; the print should adhere to the tape. You can then stick it to contrasting paper to maintain a record of the print.

4. After you become proficient with dusting a slide, try to test other surfaces like doorknobs or faucets.

5. See if you can identify any of the prints you develop. To do this, take the prints of your family members and compare the known prints with the “mystery” prints. Color a couple square inches on a piece of paper with a pencil, have a family member rub their finger on the square to pick up graphite, then have them press their finger down on the sticky side of a piece of tape. Stick the tape to a white sheet of paper and label whose print it is. Compare the known prints to a print you lifted around the house using the procedure on the Fingerprint Analysis Sheet.

Read more for even more ways to lift fingerprints.


Oils from your finger left an impression of your prints on the slide. When you brushed the powder off the smooth slide, some of it stuck to the oils, allowing you to see the patterns.

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EXPERIMENT #3

Owl's Odd Offerings

When the moon rises, owls take to the night, leaving behind mysterious little packages. 

 

Get everything you need in this one kit:
Owl Pellet Dissection Kit

Or purchase individual owl pellets here:

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Large
Small


Watch our video for a full introduction

1.  Carefully inspect the outside of the pellet and note its size, whether there are any feathers visible, and whether there are any clues to where the pellet was found. 

2. Next, gently pull apart the pellet, being careful not to break any of the bones inside it. Use toothpicks or a teasing needle to separate the bones from the fur or feathers. Take special care when removing the skulls and jawbones, since they are the best way to identify the animals that the owl ate.

3. Group similar bones together. When you’ve finished sorting the bones, roll the last bits of fur between your fingers to find little bones or teeth that might have been overlooked.

4. Once you’ve found all the bones, try to reconstruct the skeletons of the animals. Use an identification key to classify the bones. Owls usually eat more than one rodent before regurgitating the remains, so you should be able to find multiple bones that are similar. 

5. How many different kinds of animals did you find evidence of in the pellet? What can you conclude about the eating habits of the owl that made your pellet?

DIG DEEPER HERE

Owl pellets are the regurgitated remains of an owl’s meal, including all the bones of the animals it ate (usually small rodents). Owls usually swallow their food whole, digest the edible parts, and then expel the indigestible parts through their mouth as a pellet. It might sound gross, but dissecting these is a project most kids love!

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EXPERIMENT #4

Pumpkin's Peculiar Playground

Ever wondered what happens when your jack-o’-lantern starts to decay? It’s not just spooky — it’s alive!
Turn your pumpkin into a petri dish and watch microbes take over.

  • 1 pumpkin (or part of it)
  • Ziplock bags
  • Marker (to write on bags)
  • Data sheet or paper
    Pencil/pen


1. Cut a pumpkin into pieces that will fit inside the ziplock bags, placing one piece of pumpkin in a bag. The size of these pieces of pumpkin is not important; just make sure they fit in the bags and the pieces are fairly uniform in size.

2. Close the ziplock bags most of the way (the environment needs to be moist, yet fresh air needs to enter.)

3. Place the bags in various areas around the house such as the refrigerator, a sunny area, a shady area, a warm area, a dry area, a moist area, etc. (You may want to label each bag with its location)

4. After choosing the locations for your pumpkin petri dishes, predict which pumpkin will grow the most mold during the course of the experiment.

5. Each day, look at all your pumpkin samples and record how much mold has grown on each piece.

6. Print out and use the charts below to record your pumpkin petri dish data.

Pumpkin Petri Dish Chart + Project
Pumpkin Petri Dish Chart Example

DIG DEEPER HERE


Not all microbes are the same — each species of mold or bacteria has unique “tastes” and growth preferences.

When your pumpkin begins to decompose:

  • Nutrients vary: Different parts of the pumpkin have different levels of sugars, proteins, and water.

  • Microbes compete: The ones best suited to each micro-environment will grow fastest.

  • Environment counts: Light, temperature, and airflow all affect which microbes thrive.


That’s why you might see:


  • Green fuzzy patches of Penicillium where moisture is higher

  • Black dots of Aspergillus in drier spots

  • White or gray web-like threads of Rhizopus spreading across the surface

In short, each color and texture reveals a different microbial community—a microscopic ecosystem built from your pumpkin’s nutrients.


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EXPERIMENT #5

The Chemistry Of Candy

Think Skittles are just for snacking? Think again. 
This experiment proves that sweets can speak science!

  • 3-4 different types of Halloween candy
  • Disposable plastic cups*
  • Benedict’s solution
  • Cutting board, knife, and fork
  • Metal spatula
  • 400 ml beaker
  • Wax pencil
  • Lab burner and stand
  • Disposable pipettes*
  • Small glass test tubes*
  • Test tube rack
  • Test tube clamp
  • Safety goggles
  • Gloves


1. Before beginning, put on your goggles and gloves. Safety first!
 
2. First you’ll  prepare a solution for each candy you’re testing. Use a knife to finely chop them, or break them into small pieces and grind them up using the back of a fork. Clean the knife and fork between each candy to avoid cross-contaminating the samples.

3. In a clean cup, measure 1 level spatula scoop of ground candy. Then repeat with additional candy types.

4. Use the pipette to add 3 droppers full of hot water to each cup. Stir, dissolving the candy as much as you can to make liquid solutions. Use the same amount of ground candy and water in each solution and clean the spatula in between.
 
5. Label each solution, and observe and record the color. Predict (make a hypothesis) which candy you think contains the most glucose.
 
6. Using a different pipette for each solution, add 25 drops of one candy solution the first test tube. Repeat with remaining candies in clean test tubes.
 
7. Label each test tube with the wax pencil.

8. Add 5 drops of Benedict’s solution to each test tube. Gently swirl to mix.
 
9. Place the stand over the lab burner. According to the manufacturer’s directions, use the lab burner to heat 300 ml of water in the beaker.
 
10. When the water boils (large bubbles appear at the surface), turn the heat to low and add the test tubes, placing them carefully inside the beaker.
 
11. After 5 minutes, turn the burner off.
 
12. Use the test tube clamp to remove the test tubes from the beaker and place them in the test tube rack.

13. Allow the solutions to cool for several minutes. Swirl the contents of each test tube, and observe and record the color of the liquid.
When you test Halloween candy for glucose, any color change (green, yellow, orange, red) means there is glucose in the solution. A dark red-brown solution indicates more glucose than any other color. Using the chart above as a guide, which candy contains the most glucose? Which Halloween candy has the least glucose?

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Glucose is a simple sugar that plants make during photosynthesis. Like all carbohydrates, it’s made of hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen. Glucose is essential to life! It is the primary source of energy for our body’s cells, and can enter our bloodstream quickly to provide energy right away. Without it, our bodies would not function well. Plus, glucose is the primary energy source used by brain cells! Without enough glucose, brain function can slow down.

Benedict’s solutions (also called Fehling’s solution) is a bright blue liquid. It’s made of copper sulfate, sodium citrate, and sodium carbonate. While it’s usually bright blue, when it’s mixed with a solution that contains glucose, it changes color! Depending on the sugar concentration, it turns green, yellow, deep-red or brown.


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EXPERIMENT #6

Glow In the Dark slime

Get ready to mix, stretch, and squish glow-in-the-dark slime—where chemistry meets light and things get delightfully eerie.

  • Small mixing bowl (or plastic mixing cups for easy cleanup!)
  • Glow in the dark powder (can be found on Amazon)
  • Measuring cup
  • Green food coloring
  • Liquid laundry starch
  • Elmer’s clear glue
  • Mixing sticks (for easy cleanup mixing!)


  1. Place your bowl on the table. Add one cup of glue and 1/2 cup of water into the bowl.
  2. Add drops of food coloring (green, one or two drops will do) and your glow-in-the-dark powder and stir.
  3. Fill your measuring cup 3/4 of the way full of starch.
  4. Carefully pour the starch into the glue cream mixture while you stir.
    It’s easy to add too much starch to slime, so stop adding starch as soon as the slime “gels.” But, if your mixture is really sticky, you may need to add a bit more starch.
  5. Place the mixture outside in bright sunlight for an hour, then bring it back inside.


The slime will be green in daylight, but when you bring it back into a dark room, suddenly, it will start to glow! The longer you leave the slime in the sun the brighter and longer it will glow in the dark. Be sure to store your slime in an airtight container or a ziplock plastic bag.

LEARN MORE HERE


Glow-in-the-dark slime combines chemistry, physics, and material science in one stretchy blob! The slime itself is a polymer, made when glue molecules link together with a slime activator, giving it that perfect gooey stretch. The glow comes from phosphorescent powder, which absorbs light energy and slowly releases it in the dark. Thicker slime glows differently than thin stretches, and stretching or squishing it shows how polymers behave as a non-Newtonian fluid.

It’s hands-on science you can see—and play with!



EXPERIMENT #7

Colorful Chemistry

Get ready to uncover the hidden rainbow inside your favorite sweets. Spoiler Alert: Our candy is more colorful thank you think!

  • M&Ms and Skittles, or other candy with colored coating
  • Petri dish or a clean plate
  • Pipet or dropper
  • Toothpick
  • Filter paper (or coffee filters cut into strips)
  • Water
  • Salt
  • Ruler or pencil
  • Clips or tape
  • Beaker


1. Prepare a salt water solution by mixing 1/8 teaspoon of salt into 3 cups of water, shaking or stirring until completely dissolved. This will be your chromatography solvent. Pour about 100 ml of salt water into the beaker.

2. Get two pieces of chromatography paper, or cut out two 4×8 cm rectangles from the coffee filter. Mark a line in pencil 1 cm from the bottom of each. Use the pencil to label one for Skittles and one for M&Ms.

3. Sort the candies to find several matching colors: both packs should contain some red, orange, green, etc.

4. Use the pipet to put a single drop of water for each M&M color in the bottom of the petri dish. (Make sure the drops are evenly spaced.) Place an M&M on each water drop and set aside. The water will dissolve the candy coloring. Remove the candy after 1-2 minutes.

5. Repeat step 3 for the Skittles, this time using the lid of the petri dish.

6. Dab the end of a toothpick in one of the colored water droplets and apply the pigment to the filter paper. Apply 2-3 coats, letting the spots dry in between. Use a clean toothpick and repeat for each color.

7. Tape or clip the papers side-by-side (but not touching) to your pencil or ruler. Place the pencil or ruler over the mouth of the beaker. You want your papers barely touching the water. The paper will soak up the water and move up the paper. When the water nears the top, take the papers out, transfer them to a clean, dry, flat surface, and let them dry.

Examine your results. What colors do you see on your chromatogram? Are the two chromatograms similar? Where do you see differences? Look at the ingredient list on the packaging and see if some of the same dyes are listed. If the dyes overlap, what do you think might be the reason for different chromatograms?


LEARN MORE HERE


The water travels up the paper strip by capillary action.

Capillary action occurs because the water is attracted to the surface of the paper, and as the first water molecules stick to the paper, they pull others along with them.

(Capillary action is one way water moves up through the roots of plants.)

As the candy coating dissolves in the water, it is pulled up the paper too.

With this candy chromatography science experiment, you probably found that the candy coating is actually a mixture of several pigments. Certain pigments dissolve in water more easily and are pulled with the water farther up the paper. Others are more attracted to the paper and move more slowly. Usually smaller molecules move farther than larger ones.

For further study, instead of a candy chromatography science project, experiment with colored markers, flavored gelatin, powdered drink mix, or food coloring. Try to predict your results.

Learn more color chromatography science projects + watch a video.



EXPERIMENT #8

Bizarre Bacteria Blooms

Not all monsters have fangs — some are microscopic!

Grow your own colonies and see what invisible creatures lurk on everyday objects. 


NOTE: While most environmental bacteria are not harmful to healthy individuals, once concentrated in colonies, they can be hazardous.

To minimize risk, wear disposable gloves while handling bacteria, and thoroughly wash your hands before and after. Never eat or drink during bacteria studies, nor inhale or ingest growing cultures. Work in a draft-free room and reduce airflow as much as possible. Keep petri dishes with cultured mediums closed—preferably taped shut—unless sampling or disinfecting. 

Before you can grow bacteria, you’ll need to prepare sterile culture dishes. A 125ml bottle of nutrient agar contains enough to fill about 10 petri dishes.

  1. Water Bath Method – Loosen the agar bottle cap, but do not remove it completely. Place the bottle in hot water at 170-190 °F until all of the agar is liquid. To prevent the bottle from tipping, keep the water level even with the agar level.
  2. Let the agar cool to 110-120 °F (when the bottle still feels warm but not too hot to touch) before pouring into petri dishes.
  3. Slide open the cover of the petri dish just enough to pour agar into the dish. Pour enough agar to cover 1/2 to 2/3 of the bottom of the dish (about 10-13ml). Don’t let the bottle mouth touch the dish.
  4. Cover the dish immediately to prevent contamination and tilt it back and forth gently until the agar coats the entire bottom of the dish. (Fill as many dishes as you have agar for: you can store extras upside down until you’re ready to use them.)
  5. Let the petri dishes stand one hour for the agar to solidify before using them.
  6. Take a cheek cell swab: use a sterile cotton swab or inoculating needle and swab the inside of your cheek. Very gently rub the swab over the agar in a few zigzag strokes and replace the lid on the dish. You’ll need to let the dish sit in a warm area for 3-7 days before bacteria growth appears.
  7. Record the growth each day with a drawing and a written description. The individual bacteria are too tiny to see without a high-power microscope, but you can see bacteria colonies. Distinguish between different types of bacteria by the color and shape of the colonies.

EXPLORE MORE BACTERIA EXPERIMENTS HERE

In this hands-on biology project, students collect bacteria by swabbing the inside of their cheek (or other surfaces), then cultivate the sample on nutrient agar in a petri dish. Over the course of several days, visible bacterial colonies form — a dramatic demonstration of how microorganisms reproduce and multiply under the right conditions. Home Science Tools Resource Center

Key Concepts:

  • Bacteria are unicellular organisms without a nucleus; their DNA floats freely within the cell.
  • Through binary fission, one bacterium can rapidly reproduce into millions or even billions when conditions are ideal.
  • By comparing a control dish (no added variable) to a test dish (with collected bacteria), students can observe different colony counts, textures, or colors — reinforcing how environment and variables affect growth.




EXPERIMENT #9

Brains...

What’s Halloween without a little brain talk?
Trace the folds and grooves, peek at the lobes that control movement, memory, and more.

You may purchase the entire dissection kit here or individual items below:

  1. A preserved sheep brain for the dissection. 
  2. Dissection pan
  3. Scalpel
  4. OPTIONAL: Microscope

  1. Download the Sheep Brain Dissection Lab for all details and instructions.
  2. Observe the internal anatomy of the brain. Notice that the brain has two halves or hemispheres. Can you tell the difference between the cerebrum and the cerebellum? Do the ridges (called gyri) and grooves (sulci) in the tissue look different? How does the surface feel?
  3. To start the dissection 

    place the brain with the curved top side of the cerebrum facing up. Use a scalpel (or sharp, thin knife) to slice through the brain along the center line, starting at the cerebrum and going down through the cerebellum, spinal cord, medulla, and pons.

  4. Separate the two halves of the brain and lay them with the inside facing up.

  5. Use the labeled picture to identify the corpus callosum, medulla, pons, midbrain, and the place where the pituitary gland attaches to the brain.Use your fingers or a teasing needle to gently probe the parts and see how they are connected to each other.

  6. Look closely at the inside of the cerebellum. You should see a branching ‘tree’ of lighter tissue surrounded by darker tissue. The branches are white matter, which is made up of nerve axons. The darker tissue is gray matter, which is a collection of nerve cell bodies. You can see gray and white matter in the cerebrum, too, if you cut into a portion of it.

  7. If you have a microscope, slice off a very thin section of the cerebrum and put it on a slide, covering it with a drop of water and a coverslip. Look at it under 100X and 400X magnification. Follow the same procedure with a section of the cerebellum, then compare and contrast the two.


EXPLORE THE FULL EXPERIMENT HERE


EXPERIMENT #10

Blood Typing

If incompatible blood is mixed, it can mean the difference between life and death. Explore different blood types, compatibilities and incompatibilities.

 

  • 16 cups filled with water (four for each blood type)
  • Red food coloring
  • Blue food coloring
  • Pen or pencil and paper to record data

Blood Compatability Test

    What You Do:

    1. Fill 16 cups with water.

    2. Put red food coloring in four cups. They’ll represent Type A blood.

    3. Put blue food coloring in four cups. These will represent Type B blood.

    4. Put blue and red food coloring in four more cups to make a purplish color; this will represent Type AB blood.

    5. Leave only water in the last four cups; this will represent blood Type O.

    6. Pour one of the red “A” blood type cups into another one of the “A” blood type cups. Since the color did not change, blood Type A is compatible with blood transfusions with blood Type A. Once you’ve recorded that data, discard the cup.

    7. Next, pour another red “A” into a blue type “B” cup. Since the color changed to purple, Type A blood and Type B blood are not compatible. Make a note of this as well.

    8. Then pour a different “A” cup into the purple AB blood type.

    9. Finally, red type A will pour the last cup into type O.

    10. Repeat the steps with type B, AB, and O and record the results.

    What Happened:
    Blood Type A can only be given to Type A and AB patients. Blood Type B can only be delivered to Type B and AB patients. Blood Type AB individuals can receive blood from everyone, but can only donate to other AB blood type patients. Blood Type O individuals can only receive Type O blood, but they can donate blood to every other type.


    EXPERIMENT #11

    Trick Of Light

    Do you see ghosts, or just tricks of the light?

    Bend reality with optical illusions and discover how your brain can be fooled!

    For the Mirror Trick Experiment:

    • Paper
    • Bathroom mirror
    • A picture of yourself
    • Handheld mirror
    • Soup spoon


    1. Write out the alphabet in capital letters on a piece of paper and hold it up in front of a mirror. Since the image is reversed, most of the letters will be backwards – but not all! See if you can find and circle the eleven letters that look normal. These letters are vertically symmetrical, meaning that if you sliced them in half, each half would be the exact opposite (“mirror image”) of the other half. See if you can make some words out of those letters and read them in the mirror – but be careful; just because the letters appear correctly doesn’t mean they will be in the right order! Is there any way you can write a message readable in the mirror? Try to figure it out.

    2. Take the handheld mirror and set it up vertically on the piece of paper just above the alphabet. Most of the letters will look upside down in the mirror, but there are nine that will look normal. These letters are horizontally symmetrical: if you cut the letter in half from side to side, the top and bottom would are mirror images of each other. Try making words of these letters and reading them in the mirror

    A mirror code would be pretty hard to write in, if you only have 9 or 11 letters to work with! Of course, you could just learn how to write your alphabet backwards and write your letters that way!

    Activity 3
    Stand in front of the bathroom mirror, then hold up the handheld mirror in front of you so it faces the bathroom mirror, too. How many “yous” do you see? You probably see too many of you to count. This is because the handheld mirror reflects the reflection in the bathroom mirror which reflects the reflection of the handheld mirror…and on and on!


    EXPERIMENT #12

    Frozen Water

    Most substances get denser when they freeze, but water breaks the rule. 

     

    Water.

    The fact that ice floats is more than a party trick. It’s vital for life and the environment: 

    Ice forms on the surface of lakes and ponds, insulating the water below so fish and aquatic life can survive the winter chill. 
    Floating sea ice helps regulate Earth’s temperature by reflecting sunlight, a key part of our planet’s climate system. 
    For your drink? It keeps your beverage cool, melting gently as it floats. 

    Ice floats because it’s less dense than liquid water. That means, for the same amount of space it takes up, ice weighs less than the water it’s sitting in. This difference in density is why solid ice doesn’t sink, because it simply weighs less than the water it displaces. 

    When you drop an ice cube into a glass of water, it pushes some of that water out of the way. According to Archimedes’ Principle, the water pushes back with an upward force called buoyancy. The ice cube settles at a point where the weight of the water it displaces equals its own weight, so part of the cube stays above the surface. That’s why it floats with a little peak sticking out. 

    


    Your Final Experiment Awaits.

    You’ve reached the final frontier of the 13 Spooktacular Experiments.
    Only the most devoted scientists — the ones who dared to dissect, mix, and glow — make it this far.
    And now, the lab belongs to you.

    Behold — the Legendary Lava Lamp.

     

     


    EXPERIMENT #13

    The Legendary Lava Lamp

    A retro relic reborn through the power of science.
    Watch as molten color rises and falls, hypnotic and haunting, alive with energy.
    Each bubble, a celebration of your curiosity. Each glow, proof that you’ve mastered the mysteries of Spooktacular science.

     

    • Flask or empty water bottle (a clear plastic bottle works well)
    • Vegetable oil, cooking oil, or baby oil
    • Water
    • Food coloring
    • Alka-Seltzer

    1. Fill the flask most of the way with your choice of oil.
    2. Fill the rest of the flask with water. The oil floats and the water sinks to the bottom of the jar under the oil and looks like little, clear blobs.
    3. Add a few drops of food coloring; your choice of color. The food coloring is water-based, so it will also sink and color the water that is now at the bottom of the flask.
    4. Break an Alka-seltzer tablet into a few small pieces, and drop them in the flask one at a time.
    5. Watch your lava lamp erupt into activity! As the chemical reaction slows down, simply add more Alka-seltzer.

    A lava lamp works because of two different scientific principles: density, and polarity.

    Concept 1: Density
    Density is the measurement of how compact a substance is - how much of it fits in a certain amount of space.

    (The scientific equation is density = mass/volume.)

    If you measure an equal volume of oil and water, you'll find that the water is heavier than the same amount of oil. This is because water molecules are packed more tightly; a cup of water actually has more mass than a cup of oil.

    Because water is more dense than oil, it will sink to the bottom when the two are put in the same container. Density is affected by temperature—the hotter a liquid is, the less dense it will be.

    Concept 2: Polarity
    Polarity is the quality of having two oppositely charged poles.

    Water molecules are "polar" because they have a lopsided electrical charge that attracts other atoms. The end of the molecule with the two hydrogen atoms is positively charged. The other end, with the oxygen, is negatively charged.

    Just like in a magnet, where north poles are attracted to south poles ("opposites attract"), the positive end of the water molecule will connect with the negative end of other molecules.

    Oil molecules, however, are non-polar— they don't have a positive or negative charge, so they are not attracted to the water molecules at all. This is why oil and water don't mix!


    

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