Welcome to the investigation zone. Here you will find great experiments
and fun things to do at home. So put down that PSP, turn off the TV
and get stuck into one of these experiments. Remember to always do an
experiment with an adult and never eat anything you experiment with, -Urgh!
Why not take some photographs of you experimenting and bring them into school?
Elephant's Toothpaste
This messy experiment is great fun.
Ingredients
Sodium Bicarbonate ( you can buy this from the supermarket)
Vinegar
Washing up liquid
An empty bottle
First pour 100ml of washing up liquid into a platic bottle. Then add 100ml of vinegar. Now spoon in the sodium bicarbonate. Watch as it bubbles away!
Egg in a bottle
Ingredients
small boiled egg with no shell
a glass bottle
matches and a little bit of paper
First, place the egg on top of the empty glass bottle and show the audience that the egg is too big to drop inside. Now, take it off and ask an adult to light the small piece of paper and drop it inside the bottle. Quickly, put the egg back on top of the bottle and it should be sucked in.
The flame burns the oxygen causing the pressure inside the bottle to drop. This causes the egg to be sucked inside.
Lava Lamp 
This experiment looks cool and you can change the colour by adding different colour dyes.
Ingredients
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Plastic Bottle with Cap
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Vegetable Oil
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Water
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Food Colouring or pen ink
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Alka-Seltzer Tablet or Vitamin C
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Instructions
STEP 1: Fill the plastic bottle three quarters of the way with vegetable oil.
STEP 2: Fill the plastic bottle the rest of the way with water.
STEP 3: Place several drops of food colouring into the plastic bottle.
STEP 4: Break the Alka-Seltzer or vitamin C tablet into two pieces and place each of the pieces of Alka-Seltzer tablet into the bottle.
Explanation
This experiment proves water and oil doesn't mix. This is because oil is less dense than water so it appears to float on top of the water. The carbon dioxide gas created when you dropped the pieces of Alka-Seltzer tablets into the mixture causes the colored water blobs to push to the top through the oil where the gas is released causing the colouring to fall to the bottom again.
Film Canister Rocket
Brilliant fun! You must try this explosive experiment. See how high you can make the rocket fly by changing the amount of water or vitamin c tablets in the rocket. You can also design a rocket cover for your film canister.
Ingredients
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Film Canister with Snap-On Lid
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Water
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Alka-Seltzer Tablet or Vitamin C
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Instructions
STEP 1: Fill the film canister 1/2 of the way full with water.
STEP 2: Place one of the Alka-Seltzer tablets in the film canister and quickly turn the canister so the top is on the surface and wait for your rocket to blast off.
Explanation
Carbon dioxide gas builds up so much pressure it forcibly launched the film canister into the air. With an Alka-Seltzer tablet, carbon dioxide gas is produced as a result of a chemical reaction between the Alka-Seltzer and the water.
Balloon Popping Trick 
Equipment
Balloon
Petroleum jelly (Vasoline )
This is a cool experiment which will amaze your family. It may take some practice first.
Instructions
First, blow up your balloon and ask a member of your audience to pop it. Then, blow up a second balloon but not all the way. Cover the tip of the needle with Vasoline and push your needle through the bottom of the balloon. It must go through the darkest part. Push it slowly all the way through to the other side. This will amaze your audience. You can push a needle into the balloon because the balloon is made of polymers. These polymers stretch around the needle and don’t let any air out.
Weird Custard
You need some cornflour and water. Pour some cornflour into a bowl and start to add a little water to it. Keep stirring, and adding little bits of water. Soon you will notice that if you stir it slowly it will behave like a liquid. However, if you punch it or roll it, it behaves like a solid. Weird!
HoverCrafts
This investigation is a little tricky and may take some practice. To make objects move faster and further you have to reduce the friction between it and the surface. Hovercrafts have very little friction because they move on a bed of air.
To make your own hovercraft you will need;
A paper plate or CD
A bottle op from washing up liquid
A balloon
Some glue
First stick your bottle top to the top of the CD. If you are using a paper plate then you will need to pierce a whole in the center of the plate.Then you need to blow up your balloon and stretch the neck over your bottle top. To release the air you need to move the bottle top to the open position. The hover craft will work best on a slope. Experiment with the size of the hole and amount of air you blow into the balloon. Ou may need o make fins like those on a an aeroplane to make it fly straight.
Fruit Battery
This is an awesome experiment and even more awesome when it works!
First, you must do this with the help of an adult.
You need:
copper wire
lemons
paper clips
light bulb
1. First, connect a paper clip to the copper wire.
2. Then, use another copper wire and attach it to the penny.
3. After that, attach a second penny to one end of the third wire and a paper clip to the other.
4. Cut two small slits in the lemon.
5. Insert a copper coin that is attached to a wire into one slit, and the
paper clip attached to the copper wire into the other.
6. Stick the penny into the hole in the other lemon.
7.Put the other paper clip into the second hole of the lemon with the penny.
8.Then put the last penny into the last open hole.
9.Connect the free ends of the wires to the light bulb..
Fingers crossed the light bulb will light up!
There's a chemical reaction between the steel in the paper clip and the
lemon juice. There's also a chemical reaction between the copper in the penny and the lemon juice. These two chemical reactions push electrons through the wires. This flow of electrons
produces an electric current.