Science Project

Jakob had to do his first science project this year for school and we picked stalactites and stalagmites. We found the project in a book that his Uncle Joe and Aunt Corrina got him for Christmas. It has all kinds of different experiments you can do at home with stuff you all ready have around the house.

With this project you dissolve 1 teaspoon of baking soda in each of the two glasses of warm water. Then take three pieces of yarn and braid them together. Dip each end into the separate glasses and clip to the glass so they don't fall out. Then have a plate underneath the string to catch the dripping water.

Here is the project after a couple of days. As you can see I tried to move the box and a bunch of the water that was in the plate went all over.

Here is the project after about a week.

As the water evaporates off the yarn it leaves the baking soda behind. This is how the stalactites and stalagmites are also formed. As the water drips and evaporates it leaves minerals behind.

This summer we visited a cave in South Dakota, so I printed off three pictures from there that shows different cave formations. And I also had Jake write some stuff on the pages.

This page I had him write that the picture was from the Wind Cave in South Dakota. And also were the largest stalagmite is located. Which is in Cuba and it's over 213 feet tall.

The next picture is of the Box work formation in the cave. And I also had him write how the formations are formed.

Now the drama was on how I was going to get this to school. We decided that I would drive the boys to school so he didn't have to try and carry it on the bus. I put the project in the front seat with me and thought we were good to go. If you have been down our road you know the crazy curves we have. Well needless to say I took the first curve and the glasses tipped over and I had water everywhere. Of course a bunch of the formations fell off, but there were enough still on that you got the general idea. I then moved the box to the back and made Jake hold the glasses. I'm not to sure what he was doing, but they ended up tipping over again. We finally made it to school and got his project to his classroom. Thank goodness they were not being graded or judged on these projects. It was more for fun and all the other classes got to come in and see them.

Sounds like in 5th grade they have to do a small machine of some kind. That should be interesting.