How To: The Best Investigatory Projects in Science: 16 Fun & Easy Ideas to Kickstart Your Project
Most of us have conducted an investigatory science project without even knowing it, or at least without knowing that's what it was called. Most science experiments performed, from elementary to high school students and all the way up to professional scientists, are investigatory projects.
How To: Make Soap Out of Guava Leaf Extract for a Science Investigatory Project
Unless you're a high-schooler building a nuclear fusion reactor, the hardest part of a science investigatory project often is coming up with a good idea. You want it to be cool yet feasible, novel but still useful.
How To: Make This Amazing 9-Layer Density Tower from Things Found in Your Kitchen
Ralph Waldo Emerson once observed that "the seed of science" was "wonder," and taking a look at this nine-layer liquid tower from Steve Spangler's Sick Science! channel, one can't help but do just that — wonder. How is this possible? Is this magic or what?
How To: Build a Simple Paper Bridge as a Science Experiment
Every day we pass bridges, whether it's a foot bridge, a highway overpass, a span over water, or a viaduct over a valley. We pass on these structures without even thinking of the engineering genius that went into their design and construction, let alone the science behind their strength.
Classic Chemistry: Colorize Colorless Liquids with "Black" Magic, AKA the Iodine Clock Reaction
Want to make boring old colorless water brighten up on command? Well, you can control the color of water with this little magic trick. Actually, it's not really magic, but a classic science experiment known commonly as the iodine clock reaction, which uses the reactions between water and chemicals to instantly colorize water, seemingly by command. You can use different colorless chemicals to produce different colors, and you can even make the color vanish to make the water clear again.
How To: Determine volume measurement
In this how to video you will learn how to measure the volume of solids and liquids. The formula for determining volume is width x length x height.
How To: Make Hard Soap with Guava Leaf Extract & Lavender
In our personal experience, the hardest part about a science investigatory project is simply coming up with a good idea. And we suggest that for your investigatory project you find a topic that's both novel and useful.
How To: Extract DNA from a Strawberry with Basic Kitchen Items
We all know that DNA is pretty amazing, but it's not something that most of us get much hands-on experience with. Even though it's in every living thing around us, we never see it, so we rarely think about it either.
How To: Make a Crazy Foam Explosion Science Experiment
Check out this video to see our Fantastic Foamy Fountain in action. The experiment uses Hydrogen peroxide and dry yeast. Hydrogen peroxide is similar to water but has an extra oxygen atom. This makes it more dangerous, and only adults should handle the hydrogen peroxide.
How To: Make Your Own Homemade Glow Sticks
Glow sticks, a popular favor at parties and outdoor events, and a must-have on Halloween, can be traced back to the United States Navy in the mid-1960s. The military desired improved visibility during night operations, and glow sticks, with their small-size portability and lack of batteries, were a perfect tactical solution.
How To: Make a Crazy Zigzagging Stream of Water Using a Speaker
Sound waves are a lot more versatile than you'd think. For starters, you can use them to project images onto a bubble and liquefy gummy bears. And now, YouTube scientist and optical illusionist extraordinaire Brusspup shows how sound waves can also be used to manipulate a stream of water into a zigzag shape.
How To: Rip a Penny in Half
No, we're not lying. But before you try and tear a plain old penny in half, you should probably watch this video first or you may hurt your fingers. While ordinary pennies are very, very difficult to rip, if you get rid of the zinc core you are left with only the thin copper shell, which is itself very easy to tear apart.
How To: Turn pennies into silver and gold coins with zinc
One of the most famous and repeated chemistry experiments involves money. Some would say this is more of a trick than an experiment, but you can be the judge of that. No one can just turn pennies into silver or gold coins, but someone with a few chemicals can. So, if you want to cooler cents in your pocket, try out this chemistry trick yourself. Nurd Rage (Dr. Lithium) shows you how to turn pennies into silver and gold coins using zinc.
How To: Make a Monster Dry Ice Bubble
Sure it's been done before, but it never gets old. There's something magical about dry ice, bubbles, and especially the result you see when they're combined!
How To: Make nitric acid
Watch this science video tutorial from Nurd Rage on how to make nitric acid. They show three ways to make nitric acid based on two different chemical approaches, both of which can be done using easily accessible materials.
How To: Use a Volumetric Flask in the Chemistry Lab
Find out how everything in a chemistry lab works, from pipettes to burners to recrystallization to storage. You'll get precise instructions on how to work and perform certain scientific duties in the chem lab, whether it's chemical or just ordinary high school science.
How To: Dissect a chicken for an anatomical look
Failed out of veterinarian school? No problem, just watch this video tutorial on dissecting a chicken (avian) to get you back on your feet. This demonstration and lecture of is by an eminent anatomist that will show you how to do it correctly.
How To: Weather Forecast And Weather Predict Without Technology
We have no control on the weather yet it is a part of our lives which influence what we do, what we eat, what we wear and many times where we live. How did people predict the weather before there was the Internet, television, radio or the weatherperson with all of their gadgets?
How To: Make boric acid from borax
This is a video tutorial in the Education category where you are going to learn how to make boric acid from borax. For this experiment you will need borax (disodium tetra borate) and conc. hydrochloric acid. Take 25 ml of hydrochloric acid and dilute it with 75 ml of water. Next take 6 - 7 gms of borax and dissolve it in boiling water. Now add equal amount of hydrochloric acid. Crystals of boric acid will start forming. They are completely insoluble in cold water. After about half an hour, fi...
How To: Dissolve ruthenium metal with household bleach
You've manage to get your hands on some ruthenium, and now you want to destroy the hard silvery-white metal of the transition series. Well, you're going to try all kinds of ways to dissolve this odd metal, but the only successful way to dissolve ruthenium is with a common household cleaner… bleach.
How To: There's Metal Hiding in Your Pepto-Bismol and Here's How You Extract It
Got an upset stomach or a little heartburn? America's favorite pink pill will cure it right up. But did you know that there's actually metal hiding in those chewable Pepto-Bismol tablets? Yes, metal. Technically, it's a poor metal, but metal's metal, right? Well, we do tend to eat a lot of iron in our diets, because it carries oxygen throughout our bodies, so consuming metallic minerals isn't anything abnormal. But you'd never think that Pepto-Bismol is actually made up of metal.
How To: How Do You Balance 14 Nails on a Single Nailhead? Find Out with This DIY Gravity Puzzle
This little brain game is all about engineering a lower center of gravity. The idea has been around forever, but most people still don't know how to do it. Trying to stack nails above the balance point will raise the CG and make the structure unstable. Here's how you can lower the CG to make a very stable structure and impress your friends.
How To: Make electroluminescent (EL) ink at home by re-doping glow powder
Just about any electroluminescent substance is cool but rather expensive if you buy it at the shops. If you need some cheap EL ink, watch this video to learn how to make blue EL powder out of cheap, easy-to-make ZnS green glow powder.
How To: Make chlorine gas with pool chlorine and hydrochloric acid
Chlorine gas is a very useful oxidant, which was first introduced as a toxic weapon by the German Army. Even today, it's still used as a weapon, most recently in the Iraq War by insurgents. But chlorine gas has more useful (and less lethal) applications, and if you want to learn how to make some at home, NurdRage has the answers.
How To: Use a protractor to measure the height of any object
In this video, we learn how to use a protractor to measure the height of any object. First, attach a level to the protractor, followed by a straw at the 45 degree angle. Next, walk back form the object while looking through the straw. Keep walking back until you spot the top of the object through the straw, then measure to the base of the object. After this, you will have an isosceles triangle that has two equal sides. Use these sides to help find what the size of the object is. After this, a...
How To: Isolate the sugar in a can of soda
In this video from ScienceOnTheBrain we learn how to isolate the sugar in a can of soda. To find out how much sugar is in soda, pour a can into a pot and boil it until all the water is gone. You will be left with the sugar, and then you can weigh it. First weigh your pot before pouring the soda in. Now boil the soda on the stovetop. When the water evaporates, you'll be left with a syrupy sugar. A can of soda has 39 grams of sugar in it. That equates to about 7 1/2 teaspoons. Fruit juice conta...
How To: Make hot ice using Sodium Acetate Trihydrate
This video in the Education category will show you how to make hot ice using Sodium Acetate Trihydrate. For this purpose you will need a pan, 100g of Sodium Acetate Trihydrate, 25ml of water, a wooden spoon and a glass. Take the Sodium Acetate Trihydrate and put 100g in the pan. Then place the pan on a stove and turn to medium heat. The Sodium Acetate Trihydrate will start to melt. In about five minutes when it has melted fully, add 25ml of water. Let the solution simmer for two minutes while...
How To: Make glass mirrors with silver nitrate
Watch this science video tutorial from Nurd Rage on how to make a mirror silvering solution from silver nitrate, ammonia, sugar, and sodium hydroxide.
How To: Instant Ice! How to Waterbend in Real Life
In one of my previous articles, I showed off how to make water freeze into ice instantaneously. In this article, I'd like to elaborate on this, and show how a glass of water can turn to ice instantly on command. What exactly is this supernatural power? Discover the secrets to ice-bending—in real life.
How To: Make Trippy Triboluminescent Crystals That Glow Red or Blue When You Smash Them
If you're a Breaking Bad junkie who can't wait for the next episode, satisfy your craving with a little at-home chemistry and make some blue DIY smash-glow crystals! No, this is not Walter White's so-called "Big Sky" or even the subpar cringe-worthy product of his competitors. It's not even the same kind of crystals, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this. This is totally legal, even kid-friendly if you play it safe, though it actually requires more safety precautions than the potassium nitra...
DIY Plastination: Turning Dead Animals Into Science-Jerky
If you found the world renown Body Worlds exhibition gnarly and perverse, perhaps you'll find this latest parade of plastination a little less so—considering we don't share the same DNA as these specimens of jerky-in-the-name-of-science. The Koerperwelten der Tiere—or Animal Body Worlds–doesn't showcase preserved corporal matter, but rather 20 odd plastinated mammals, currently on display at the Cologne Zoo in Cologne, Germany.
How To: Salicylate determination with visual colorimetry
If you're interested in forensic toxicology and are trying to determine the presence of salicylate by using a visual colorimetry, then look no further. This indepth and compelling video takes you into world of salicylate determination.
How To: Prove that water molecules are polar with a home-science experiment
This free video science lesson from Jefferson Lab demonstrates a simple technique for demonstrating the polarity of the water molecules. For all of the relevant details and detailed, step-by-step instructions, as well as to get started trying this experiment yourself, watch this home-science how-to.
How To: Balance chemical equations the right way
In this tutorial, we learn how to balance chemical equations. The first thing you want to do is to draw a graph and label one side reactants and the other side products. Go through each of the atoms that are in your equation on both sides. Write out how many atoms are in each chemical. Then, find a common multiple that will give you and equal amount on each side of the equation. Continue to do this same for all the chemicals in your equation, then when you are finished write it out. Now you w...
How To: Perform Separation by Decantation in the Chemistry Lab
Find out how everything in a chemistry lab works, from pipettes to burners to recrystallization to storage. You'll get precise instructions on how to work and perform certain scientific duties in the chem lab, whether it's chemical or just ordinary high school science.
How To: Do this quick foot experiment to trick your brain
This week's experiment has made the rounds through the Internet as a strange trick, but there is science here too. We are going to use the science of complex systems to confuse your body. To try this, you will need:
How To: Make Oobleck
Oobleck is a cool substance that is not quite liquid or solid. Don't believe me, then try for yourself!! All you need is a couple of household ingredients!!
How To: Make Your Own Glowing Green Fluorescein (Fluorescent Dye)
Fluorescent dye can be a great addition for decorating around the house for Halloween, especially for a haunted one. Creating your own fluorescent dye is a simple experiment, as long as you've got the proper chemicals and safety gear. Nurd Rage details the chemical process of creating your own fluorescein below.
How To: Discover the Hidden Colors in Everyday Objects with This DIY Video Spectrometer
A spectrometer is a device that splits light into all of the different colors it's composed of that can't be seen with the naked eye. It does this by using a prism to refract or bend the light. Jeffrey Warren over at Public Labs created a tutorial showing how you can make your own video spectrometer and create spectra like the one pictured below. Any guesses as to what the subject is? Believe it or not, that's what whipped cream looks like when viewed through a spectrometer. You can do this w...
How To: Make blue phosphorescent glow-in-the-dark powder
Making a blue glowing substance is easy, as long as you already know the secret to making green luminescent phosphorescent glow powder. By watching the green glow-in-the-dark procedure, you know that you will need strontium nitrate, aluminum nitrate, europium and dysprosium nitrates, and nitric acid. That will make a green glow, but if you want to make a blue version, it's a relatively easy fix...