Surface Tension

For science today we talked about
surface tension: A force that pulls together molecules on the surface of a liquid.
cohesion: attraction of molecules to each other rather than to molecules they are touching.
adhesion: attraction of molecules of one substance to the molecules of another substance it is touching.

First Cohesion....drops of water, next to drops of oil, they don't mix.
Then adhesion..  drops of water on a penny. We counted how many drops a penny would hold, then we added soap, and counted again.  For us, there were about 5-6 fewer drops of water on the penny once the soap was added.

Third, surface tension...what better activity to show this then to play with bubbles?  The kids made bubble makers using straws and yarn.

It took some practice first to get the bubble solution to stay on the maker, and to get it close enough to their mouths to blow a bubble.

Once that was figured out,  they figured out just how hard to blow, and then we had great success!

What fun today!  They each chose to do a write up about one of the three activities, which gave us another chance to talk about the actual science part!