At dinner last night, Johnny started asking about the makeup of water. I was happy about this because it meant that maybe we would go one meal without the mention of certain bodily functions. Johnny and his dad have had many a conversation about molecules and atoms, and surprisingly he finds the subject very interesting. Well, one thing lead to another and soon the three of them were on the back porch doing an electroplating experiment.
John decided to show them how they could split water molecules and transfer atoms from one fork to another. He quickly threw the experiment together by collecting a car battery, a glass of water and two forks. He hooked one fork up to the negative side and one to the positive side and tried to show how the plating of one fork could be transferred to the other. I was worried about the safety of our kids mostly, not that I don't trust John, but sometimes he does get a little carried away in the excitement. He said that as long as they were in a well ventilated area and the two jumper cables didn't touch they would be fine, so naturally I let them carry on. In the reaction the water turned a lovely green color.
he said that it would have worked better with distilled water and less salt. Here he is modeling the forks, both of them were pretty much ruined, but one is definitely shinier than the other. The glass was also permanently damaged, so we had to throw it away.
And this is a reminder to me of why we don't have nice things. It's worth it for education right?
John decided to show them how they could split water molecules and transfer atoms from one fork to another. He quickly threw the experiment together by collecting a car battery, a glass of water and two forks. He hooked one fork up to the negative side and one to the positive side and tried to show how the plating of one fork could be transferred to the other. I was worried about the safety of our kids mostly, not that I don't trust John, but sometimes he does get a little carried away in the excitement. He said that as long as they were in a well ventilated area and the two jumper cables didn't touch they would be fine, so naturally I let them carry on. In the reaction the water turned a lovely green color.
he said that it would have worked better with distilled water and less salt. Here he is modeling the forks, both of them were pretty much ruined, but one is definitely shinier than the other. The glass was also permanently damaged, so we had to throw it away.
And this is a reminder to me of why we don't have nice things. It's worth it for education right?
10 comments:
Tomorrow's activity: Nuclear fission!!
Yah, nice things and kids don't go together well. (Remember husbands are just big kids.) Glad you had that picture to show Hannah as part of the three... I was wondering if it was John or Johnny that had a split personality. lol
At least you know the answers to Johnny's questions...I learned something new from this post. I was never much of a sciencer :)
That was well worth two forks and a glass!
So you know, John DID get this from his dad. I remember Dad showing me the same experiment on our back porch before John was even born.
Your poor mom, she must have sacrificed many cups and forks to the cause too.
Very cool!
Hey,us kids always took the blame for loosing the forks etc. in the sand box, when really it was Dad.
How cool to have that much knowledge around the house, and that Johnny is so interested at such a young age. It's worth the ruined flatware!
Isn't being married to engineers so much fun!
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