Our main booth activity was one of our classics – the Sugar Rainbow where participants of all ages could layer different colored and different density solutions to make rainbows. While many of the surrounding booths demonstrated technological marvels such as robotics, models and the like, we chose to do something simple with common materials to illustrate that you can also do cool science with simple materials from around the home and it also showcased in a cool and colorful way, a scientific concept that many of our students would recognize from the classroom. It’s an activity which is also simple enough that most younger kids can get it and also helps them see themselves as scientists as they are mixing colored liquids in test-tubes (have to love that chemist stereotype) And it wasn’t just the younger kids who got engaged as participants of all ages stopped by as you can see in the gallery below. The Science Academy team (Cole, Hannah, Grace, Seema, and Bella) along with Dr. Graeme and a visiting Dr. Mike (who really tried to make it about lakes and limnology) from the Concordia biology department also had a great time and we are grateful to Dr. Jenn (also Concordia biology for photos)

Afternoon at 3:15 after the official proclamation of the day as STEMday saw us take the stage joined by Bailey, one of the Science Academy Alums who helped with Dr. Graeme’s big book of science as we ran through experiments from physics, biology, chemistry and tried to coordinate a 21 rocket balloon finale. We are very grateful to our ASL interpreter who hopefully did not have to struggle too much with the inevitable use of the word Shoogle and again to Dr. Jenn for photos in the gallery below. FInally, thanks also to Concordia for letting us skip class to do this, ScimathMN for having us back and all those who stopped by

And then after a year off, Concordia Science Academy made it’s return to the opening day STEM day events at the Minnesota State Fair where we had a booth to run a science activity (Dr. Graeme’ s current favorite – paper chromatography) and were scheduled to do two performances of our ‘Chemistry and beyond..’ stage show. Dr. Berquo from Concordia’s physics department and Hannah, a sophomore chemistry major accompanied Dr. Graeme on the trip down and while the fair was not as busy as usual, we still had a great many budding young scientists stop by and experience chromatography.

And for our first stage show, we also saw the welcome return of Bailey, a past science academy student president and biology graduate who has gone on to do some awesome science and who is always welcome at our events. Sadly, as we finished our stage show and stepped down, the rain started and essentially shut down things for the rest of the afternoon so we huddled in the tent for a while till the rain stopped. In spite of that, it was awesome to get back out there again, see other science outreach professionals and work with SCiMathMN at the state fair.

Some more pictures from the event including our soggy end to the day can be found here.

So back to Moorhead and as we settle into the school year, we took part in the Student organization Expo this past Sunday getting incoming Concordia Students exceited about going out and doing science and our hope is to get more people involved now we are back and able to do events safely. Of course, the student members this past year or two have done a great job in keeping things going and Dr. Graeme is always grateful to the students that make it possible to get out there and do science in the community and without them, we would not be where we are today.

We’re hoping to make a few appearances here and there so if you are interested in working with us, feel free to reach out to Dr. Graeme at wyllie@cord.edu

Thursday September 9th; Moorhead Inclusive Playground- Family Picnic – details here

Friday October 22nd – Spooky Science for Halloween at Fargo Public Library. – details here

The Gallery below shows Hannah and Dr. Graeme making a rocket and has instructions so you can do this at home..

Dr, Graeme and Josh also made a video making a rocket of this so check it out below..

Further Experiments:

So now you’ve made your rocket, what other awesome science can you do with it? Well, after your first launch, you may be asking what can I do to make fly further or higher. Why not try experimenting by blowing harder or softer? Does it make a difference how far it goes if you aim it higher or more straight ahead. If you make another rocket and use no fins or maybe 2 fins only, does it fly better or worse.. Like the real rocket science that is being done across the world, the skies the limit…

Our build a rocket activity is based on one we found on the NASA homepage so check out the original version below. They use a different style of rocket fins so if you want to experiment, maybe make another rocket using their design and see if it flies any further:

NASA Link: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/learn/project/make-a-straw-rocket/

Here at Concordia Science Academy, we’ve being making videos of us doing some awesome science experiments and we have a few cool experiments we want to share that you can do at home. So watch the videos and if you want to see how to make sugar rainbows or do chromatography at home, we’ve got instructions and pictures below the videos to show you how…

Sugar Rainbows (or colorful density)

Materials needed:
1 or 2 plastic test tubes (i take home science kit)
2 plastic pipettes (In take home science kit)
4 plastic cups or containers [9 oz solo cup is a good size)
Plastic spoons for mixing
Small bathroom cups
1 jug of water
Food colors (can be bought as 4 different colors at the grocery store)
A cup or glass so plastic test tubes can be stood up
Towels or a cloth to wipe up spills

Instructions:
First we have to make our solutions. Fill three of the small bathroom cups with sugar as you see in the picture above.
Into one of the larger 9 oz cups, fill this 2/3 with water and then add 2 small cups of sugar and enough blue food color to make it a dark blue color. Stir (it takes a while) until all the sugar is dissolved
Into a different cup, fill 2/3 with water, add the other small cup of sugar, some yellow food color and stir till all dissolved (will be easier to dissolve than the blue
Finally, in the last cup, add just water and red food color

First, let’s learn to layer solutions. Using a plastic dropper pipette, squeeze out the bulb at the top, put end in blue solution and allow the bulb to reinflate. It will suck up some of the blue liquid. Put 2 squirts of blue (about a pipettes worth for each) in the plastic tube.
Now using a different pipette or one you have washed by sucking and squirting water into it, we are going to add red carefully. Tilt the tube till it is almost flat but not enough to let stuff spill. Rather than squirt fast, hold the pipette with the bulb up and touch the tip of the pipette to the inside of the tube near the top and gently let the liquid run down (see the video with Mia and Dr Graeme above). If you do this right, you’ll have blue on the bottom and red on the top. Maybe practice a couple of times if you need (the tube can be washed withe water between experiments)

WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN?? It’s all about density. Things which are heavier sink and things which are lighter tend to float. The blue liquid is heavier because we took all that sugar and dissolved it in the water making it heavy. The red is lighter because it has no sugar

Instructions Continued
Now let’s see what happens if we change the order. Add 2 squirts of red to a new or washed tube and then tilt and slowly add blue? What happens – the blue should sink down into the bottom of the tube and leave the red (less dense) on the top
Try seeing what happens when you add red and yellow or blue and yellow to clean tubes. You can add the first liquid fast and you should always add the second one slow with the tube tilted or else they will mix too fast (even though they have different densities, they can mix if added fast)
Finally to make the rainbow, add 2 squirts of blue, tilt and add 2 or 3 squirts of yellow slow and then a squirt of red while tilted and slow. If you do this right, you should have a rainbow in a tube like the one Mia made in the picture and video above

Chromatography

In this section, we have two experiments that use chromatography, a science technique that separates out things whether they stick to a solid (paper in this case) or stay in a moving liquid (water). In this experiment, we’ll see permanent markers like sharpie stick to the paper and not move at all and washable markers move with the water. This is related to something called polarity, a property of materials that Dr. Graeme looks at in his research lab.

Materials Needed:
Water soluble marker pens
A sharpie
Bathroom cup or similar small cup
Taller plastic up or glass (see through is better)
Water
Several paper coffee filters

This time round, we’ve added instructions on the pictures so if you want to do this at home, scroll through the pictures or just watch the awesome videos with Mary and Morgan helping Dr. Graeme do science above

Hope you had fun with these experiments, Keep doing science!!

Check back in February to March 2021 for the new website