Here at Play Like a Girl, we’re gearing up for our first-ever virtual summer camp. Camp will focus on entrepreneurship and how to transform exciting STEM ideas into real-life businesses. Girls in grades 5 and 6 will develop their own products or services, while receiving mentorship from local entrepreneurs and women and men in business.
By week’s end, the girls will pitch their business ideas in a SharkTank-style competition for real money to bring an idea to life. Camp will definitely be an exciting week!
To get your girls’ creative juices flowing, below are some easy at-home STEM projects that can be done in 10 minutes or less.
Balloon Magic
Bernoulli’s principle states that fast moving air has lower pressure than slow moving air. This principle can be illustrated through a simple experiment using balloons, string, tape, a paper towel tube, and a door.
To begin, inflate the balloons and attach them to the top of a door about four inches apart. Then, pick up the tube and blow air through the gap between the balloons.
Do the balloons move? If the experiment is done correctly, they should move towards each other, rather than away from each other, as one might expect, illustrating the concept of Bernoulli’s principle.
Orange Fizz
When acids and bases mix, a chemical reaction occurs, releasing carbon dioxide bubbles (the same stuff that makes soda fizzy!). You can easily experiment with this at home using oranges, which contain citric acid and baking soda, a base.
Simply slice an orange and dip the slice into baking soda so that it coats the surface of the orange. Then, take a bite into your experiment. It should start bubbling right in your mouth as you chew!
Bucket Excitement
Newton’s first law of motion states that an object in motion wants to stay in motion. Therefore, when an object is spinning around in a circle, it wants to continue moving in a straight line unless force is applied in another direction. This can be demonstrated through water in a bucket.
First and most importantly, try this experiment outside. Fill any size bucket three-fourths of the way with water – make sure it is not too heavy. Swing it back and forth, increasing in speed until you can swing it all the way around, allowing it to go upside down. The desire of the water to keep moving in a straight line is what is known as inertia.
This should keep it in the bucket, despite gravity pulling it towards the ground, as long as you are swinging fast enough.
Snap a few pictures or videos of you trying these experiments, tag @iplaylikeagirl and #girlsrockSTEM and share on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. We just might reshare your post on our pages.
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