Getting started in chemistry for kids: Learn how to make a liquid density tower

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STEM chemistry activities for the kids: Density tower

In this tutorial, we will focus on Chemistry. More precisely on how to make a liquid density tower at home. And what is the principle behind it.

Have you ever seen before when you melt vegetable oil or honey with water, both of them after being stirred up come apart to 2 different entities. We are going to make a little experiment with this.

Materials for the liquid density tower

To get started, you need to find all the following. It should be easy to find in your kitchen. You can ask your mom and dad to find it for you. If not, you can find it at the closest grocery store.

Vegetable oil
Milk
Dish soap
Honey
Water
Food coloring

Tools:

2 plastic cups
1 transparent glass
1 syringe or turkey baster
1 cork
one bolt, or rubber (Something heavy)

Let's get started step-by-step for the density tower

To get started, pour milk in the glass.

When done, pour milk in a different cup and suck it with a syringe.

We can push the milk slowly in the glass already filled honey. Be careful to do it slowly so the milk and the honey do not melt.

Make sure the two of them are well separated

Pour dish soap in a cup and add food coloring in it so we can see it when in the glass.

Stir up the food coloring in the cup ans suck it with a syringe

There is the result:

Get a cup and pour water in it. Add a different food coloring to the water that the one you used with the dish soap. Then stir it up.

After the previous procedure, pour the mix in the glass slowly so you do not mix all the previous mixture (It happened to me, lol).

Look at the whole mix (By looking at it, I should had increased the density of blue in the water. But you got the point of the all project).

It's time for the vegetable oil now. Pour it in the cup. Suck it with the syringe.

Then pour it slowly on the top of the rest of the mixture in:

We are all done for the mixture thing. It kind of melt a little bit, but we are still in good shape ;-))))

Testing the density tower mixture

Test with a cork

Now that we are finish. you and the children can test the liquid density tower with different objects. Let me explain myself with actions.

Take a cork and put it slowly at the top of the mixture and look what is happening.

On the picture above, we can see that the cork stays at the top of the mixture and is not drown. That's because the density of the cork is really light. You can compare something with the same size as a cork but a different (heavier) weight. Let give it a try.

Test with a rubber

Do the same thing as previously but with a rubber instead of a cork and look the difference.

Conclusion of the density tower experiment

After looking at the mixture in the glass, we can see that the rubber landed at the bottom of the glass. It did not stay at the surface of the mixture like the cork. It's because the density of the rubber for the same volume is heavier than the cork.

A quick example can be to compare a plastic for and and a steel fork with the same size. They do have the same size but have different weights. That was the quick conclusion of this experiment.

You can try this STEM activity at home with the children since everything can be found at the local grocery store. Let me know your thoughts and improvement that can be made about the project.

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