Name School Grade
Autographs
Table of Contents
2 Floaters and Sinkers
14 Cold
4 Mirrors
16 Bubbles
6 Rockets
18 Weather
8 Science Detectives
20 Volcanoes
10 Solar Systems and Stars
22 Plants We Eat
12 Space Exploration
24 Math
Floaters and Sinkers Whatever floats your boat COOL FACTS • Submarines
go up and down in the water by changing how much water they store in their special tanks.
• Steel
ships float because of their shape and the air inside the boat, even though steel is denser than water.
FUN STUFF Look at whether or not different objects will float or sink depending on their shape or material. Make a lava lamp!
TRIVIA What solid substance will float easily in its liquid form?
2
JOK
if a rooster lays an egg in the water, will the egg float or sink? Roosters don’t lay eggs.
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TRY THIS! By folding a piece of aluminum foil, make a boat that you think can hold the largest number of pennies and still float above water. Try this in a large bowl, sink or even your bathtub! Make different boat prototypes and see which one works best!
THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE FUN Pressure, force and area all play a part in how a boat floats. Having a larger volume allows the force of the pennies to be distributed along the boat.
Mirrors Seeing the light! COOL FACTS • The
first mirrors were made of a polished, glassy, black volcanic rock called obsidian. Before mirrors were invented, people looked at their reflection in water.
• Some
people believe that breaking a mirror causes seven years of bad luck. This myth came from the ancient Romans’ belief that a person’s soul was held in their reflection. They believed that breaking a mirror harmed your reflection and that it would take seven years for your soul to heal.
FUN STUFF Investigate how light moves, reflects and creates images on a reflective surface and create your own periscope!
TRIVIA What are the three main types of mirrors?
4
JOK
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how come your face looks so great today?
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TRY THIS! Write your name on a piece of paper and hold it up in front of a mirror. Can you read it?
THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE FUN A flat, smooth, 2D mirror (called a plane mirror) creates a reflection that is right-side-up, but with left and right reversed. That’s why your writing looks backwards.
Rockets Blast off! COOL FACTS • Robert
Goddard (the father of modern rocketry) launched the world’s first liquid-fuelled rocket on March 16, 1926.
• The
Saturn V rocket was the largest rocket ever made and successfully launched. The Saturn V is 110.6 metres long and weighs almost three million kilos!
• The
only part of the rocket that stays in space (carrying the astronauts) is the payload.
FUN STUFF Build different types of rockets fuelled by different gases and the build-up of pressure.
TRIVIA Who said, “to every action there is always opposed an equal reaction”?
6
JOK
how do you get a baby astronaut to sleep? You rock-et
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TRY THIS! Take a few toilet rolls (or paper towel rolls), and tape them together into a long tube. Stick some balled-up toilet paper or a pompom in one end and, using your breath, propel it as far as you can. What tube design or angle makes the pompom go the farthest?
THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE FUN As you breathe out, air is forced into the gap between your mouth and the pompom, building up air pressure that then pushes the pompom out the end of the tube.
Science Detectives Whodunnit? COOL FACTS • A
single strand of hair can give lots of information about someone, but without the root follicle of the hair (the part containing DNA), it’s difficult to get good data.
• Blood
can be tested for alcohol and drugs only when it’s wet, which is difficult because blood begins to dry in air within 3–5 minutes.
FUN STUFF Look at the different tools that detectives use to solve different cases.
TRIVIA What is dactyloscopy?
8
JOK
what do you always have but always leave behind? Your fingerprints!
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TRY THIS! Chew a piece of bubble gum. In your mouth, roll your gum into a smooth ball. Press the gum into the topside of your teeth to form teeth prints. Look at the different teeth prints!
THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE FUN Everyone has different teeth, and each person leaves a unique bite mark. When huge disasters like a plane crash happen, about 93% of people are identified through their dental records!
Solar Systems and Stars Here comes the sun (and its planets) COOL FACTS • Earth’s moon is only the fifth-largest moon in our solar
system. Saturn has a moon larger than ours, and Jupiter has three that are larger! • One day on Venus is equal to 243 days on Earth! It takes
Venus 243 days to rotate and 225 days to revolve around the sun. Venus is the only planet in our solar system that has days longer than its year.
FUN STUFF Look at how craters on the moon are formed and make a star finder to help you map the night skies!
TRIVIA How far away is Earth from the sun?
10
JOK
if meteorites hit a planet, what do we call the ones that miss? A meteor-wrong
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TRY THIS! Mnemonics are tools to help you remember information. Make your own mnemonic to help you remember the order of the planets in relation to the sun!
THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE FUN We have eight planets in our solar system. (Pluto is a dwarf planet.) Starting at the sun, the planets are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune (and then Pluto).
Space Exploration Finding new worlds COOL FACTS • In space, away from the strong pull of Earth’s gravity,
you can grow 5–8 cm taller because your spinal column lengthens. • In
2009, the Kepler telescope was launched. It is now searching the Milky Way Galaxy for Earth-like planets, where we could one day possibly live.
• If
you had enough money, you could take a vacation in space, like Dennis Tito did in 2001. He stayed at the International Space Station for eight days, for $22 million!
TRIVIA Who said, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”? What was he famous for?
12
JOK
when do astronauts have lunch? At launch time!
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FUN STUFF Learn about astronauts and how they travel through space, and make your own lunatic lander and rocket.
TRY THIS! Sketch the shape of the moon every night for a week (or even a month).
THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE FUN The moon goes through a series of phases. The phases are: new moon, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, third quarter, waning crescent, and back to new moon.
Cold Brrrr! It’s cold in here. There must be some science in the atmosphere! COOL FACTS • Many frogs can survive the cold winter months because they
can be frozen and then safely re-thawed! Frogs have special blood that freezes into bead shapes that do not damage cells. Human blood freezes into sharp shapes that poke through and damage our cells.
FUN STUFF Look at what happens to dry ice when it meets with water and make your own plastic baggie ice cream!
TRIVIA Where is the coldest place on earth?
14
JOK
what do you call 50 penguins in the arctic? Lost! Really lost! (Penguins live in Antarctica)
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TRY THIS! Find two Styrofoam cups and label one cup “water” and the other “rubbing alcohol.” Fill the cups to about ¼ with each substance, place both cups in the freezer, and wait for four hours. What happens in each cup?
THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE FUN Water has a freezing temperature of 0°C, while rubbing alcohol has a freezing temperature of −83°C. Standard freezers do not get cold enough for rubbing alcohol to freeze but are cold enough for water to freeze into ice.
Bubbles Troubles with bubbles COOL FACTS • Soap
bubbles are made of a thin film of soap and water wrapped around air.
• Soap
bubbles can actually freeze in air below −15°C, but the air will slowly leave and the bubble will crumble in on itself.
FUN STUFF Make bubbles that you can touch, do cool tricks with bubbles, and make your own bubble wand!
TRIVIA How big is the largest free-floating soap bubble ever made?
16
JOK
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say this five times really quickly: DOUBLE BUBBLE GUM, BUBBLES DOUBLE.
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TRY THIS! Using soapy water and a straw, create a bubble monster! Blow a clump of bubbles. Add more bubbles to the top. How big a monster can you make?
THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE FUN Bubbles are made of soap, water and air. Soap molecules have two ends, a hydrophobic end and a hydrophilic end. The hydrophobic end avoids water and attaches to oil. The hydrophilic end avoids oil and attaches to water. Soap thus helps attach oily dirty stuff to water so that the dirt can be washed away from clothes and dishes.
Weather It’s raining cats and dogs. Try not to step in a poodle! COOL FACTS • The
fastest speed a falling raindrop can reach is 29 km/h.
• On
a crisp winter day, a snowflake falling at 3–6 km/h takes about an hour to reach the ground.
FUN STUFF Explore strange weather patterns and make your own tornado!
TRIVIA Which city had the most rainfall in one minute (31.2mm of rain)?
18
JOK
what does a cloud wear under its raincoat? Thunderwear!
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TRY THIS! Build an anemometer to measure wind speed: Count how many times your anemometer spins in one minute!
THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE FUN Anemometers measure the speed of wind. Wind enters the cups. The pin is the axis on which the anemometer spins. We can estimate how fast the wind moves by counting the number of spins per minute. Wind speed is used to measure the direction and speed of storms and may actually detect natural disasters caused by wind!
Volcanoes Magnificent molten magma COOL FACTS • The
deadliest volcanic eruption happened in Tambora, Indonesia, in 1815, killing about 92,000 people. Though volcano eruptions are very hot and dangerous, the main cause of death in this eruption was starvation, resulting from the loss of food crops.
• Magma
comes from the Greek word meaning “dough” or “paste.”
FUN STUFF Look at the different types of volcanoes found on earth and make your own erupting volcanoes!
TRIVIA What is the largest volcano on earth? What type of volcano is it?
20
JOK
what did the dad volcano say to the mom volcano? Do you lava me like I lava you?
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TRY THIS! Place white- and milk-chocolate chips into a bowl. In a microwave, heat the chips until they melt (microwave at 20-second intervals). Mix well until everything is blended. Let cool. Make observations.
THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE FUN Metamorphic rock melts and becomes a hot magma because of the heat from the earth’s core. It then cools and becomes igneous rock! Though igneous rock is made up of the same ingredients as the metamorphic rock, it looks very different because it’s all in one piece.
Plants We Eat Growing green COOL FACTS • 92%
of the weight in a watermelon is water!
• A
fruit is anything that comes from a flower and contains a seed, so technically a cucumber, bell peppers and even hazelnuts are fruits.
• Avocados have the highest calories of any fruit (a medium-
sized avocado has about 275 calories)!
FUN STUFF Learn about different parts of a plant and what plants need to grow, and design and build your own seed!
TRIVIA What is the tallest tree in the world and where is it found?
22
JOK
what does the letter A have in common with a flower? Both have bees coming after them.
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TRY THIS! Put a plastic bag over a houseplant and use a twist-tie to secure it around the stem. After 24 hours, look inside the bag. Do you see moisture?
THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE FUN Plants are very important on our planet because they take in carbon dioxide from the air and give back oxygen for us to breathe in. Plants need water, nutrients from soil, sunlight, water and CO2 from the air to grow. Water and oxygen are released from the plant through the leaves.
Math Mathematics in motion COOL FACTS • Math
can be used to help solve crime. For example, math can be used in formulas to figure out, from skid marks, how fast a car was moving and even to create models to make a blurred image clearer.
FUN STUFF Look at cool math tricks to solve tough problems and use the help of math to build 3D shapes!
TRIVIA Write as many digits of
24
(pi) as you can!
JOK
what do you get if you divide the circumference of a jack-o’-lantern by its diameter?
Pumpkin Pi!
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TRY THIS! Answer the following to 12 decimal places. 1 ÷ 7 = , 2 ÷ 7 =
,
3 ÷ 7 =
, 4 ÷ 7 =
,
5 ÷ 7 =
,6÷7=
What patterns do you see?
THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE FUN All of the answers include the pattern “142857.” In fact, if we divide any number by 7 (except multiples of 7), we see the “142857” pattern.
TOP FIVE WAYS TO SAVE ENERGY AND BE POWER SMART 1. Switch off the lights 2. Use compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) 3. Turn off computers 4. Take shorter showers 5. Turn down the heat
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