5 Days of Fun Farm Science: Osmosis in Potatoes

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This week is our county fair, and the kids will be taking potatoes we've grown in our garden to show. I'll let you know how that turns out. :) In the mean time we were talking about osmosis. You know, the reason your fingers turn to raisins in the bathtub.  I found a fun illustration on the Supercharged Science website that explored this... using potatoes!

Osmosis in Potatoes

Materials:
4 thin slices of potato.
4 jars
water
salt
food coloring

Process:
We tweaked the experiment because we wanted to be sure we could "see" the water moving into or out of the potato slices. We did two glasses of water with food coloring, and two glasses without. We added salt to one of each color group. (about a Tbs per 2 cups)  We actually thought that maybe the potatoes would add their water to the salty water and that they would soak up the fresh water. What we discovered was the opposite.

After about an hour of soaking, we inspected the potatoes. The slices in the fresh water got more crisp (loaded with water), while the ones in the salt water became rubbery. They had given over their water to try and equalize the salinity of the water.

I hope you enjoyed this week of blog hops, and found lots of great ideas there. It was fun for us to discover the science all around us. No matter where you live, every detail of life shows it was created with an amazing design! 

Blessings, 

Laura

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©2012-2013 Loving and Learning on the High Plains. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://www.homeschoolhighplains.blogspot.com

5 Days of Fun Farm Science: Rubber Eggs

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Here on our little "farm" we have the greatest population of chickens. They outnumber our family 6 to 1. :) We've love how the eggs we collect are so different than what you see in the store. Our chickens lay brown, white, and green eggs. Yes, green! Every so often, we have a chicken skip the shell. The egg is perfectly formed in its soft membrane, but no shell.

We found a fun little experiment on the Supercharged Science website that illustrates this. We used one boiled egg and one raw egg just to see the difference... minus the shell.

Materials:
raw egg
hard boiled egg
two clean jars or water glasses
distilled white vinegar

Process:
We put the two eggs in the jar (we chose two different colors so we could tell them apart), and later decided on two separate jars. Then we covered them with white vinegar. Immediately we observed bubbles coming off of them. We learned that:

Vinegar has, among other things, a chemical called acetic acid (about 3% of it is acetic acid). Egg shells contain calcium carbonate. Calcium carbonate in the egg shell reacts with vinegar to form carbon dioxide (can be seen as bubbles in the vinegar). -Ask the Van

After 4 hours the shells were quite thin, but it took a full 24 hours for them to completely dissolve. There was nothing left but some shell colored (brown in this case) sediment on the bottom of the jar. We inspected the eggs (including a bounce test for the boiled egg!) and then we cut them open. It was easiest to inspect the membrane on the raw egg. It was amazingly thick and tough! I now know why that membrane is so important, it keeps germs and everything out!

When we split the eggs, we were amazed that they didn't really even smell like vinegar inside. We still didn't eat them. ;)

Feel free to try it yourself! Would a store bought egg have more or less shell to dissolve? If you do, let us know how many hours it takes! I'd love to hear from you.

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©2012-2013 Loving and Learning on the High Plains. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://www.homeschoolhighplains.blogspot.com

5 Days of Fun Farm Science: Gas Ripened Tomatoes

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Often grocery stores buy gas ripened tomatoes. The tomatoes are picked green for easy transport and are exposed to ethylene gas to ripen them. While they don't taste as great as vine ripened, they do last longer. Last summer my tomatoes had a late start and didn't ripen on the vine before the frost. So I picked them all and put them in boxes in the basement, and used them as they ripened up.

When we went on a field trip to a grocery store a while back, the grocer explained to the kids that he keeps the fruits and veggies in separate walk-in coolers, so that they don't ripen too quickly. This led us to another great science experiment we found on the Supercharged Science website. We've had large green tomatoes on the vine for a couple of weeks now... but none have ripened. So here's what we did to illustrate the concept.

Materials:
3 Green tomatoes
Ripe banana
Ripe Peach
3 paper bags

Experiment:

In the first bag we placed a green tomato. In the second bag we placed a green tomato and a very ripe peach. In the third bag we placed a green tomato and a banana. We checked them daily and didn't see any changes, but finally on the 9th day we began to see a blush of pink on the tomato that was bagged with the peach. By then the peach was moldy. The one with the banana didn't change at all. So Mayda ate the banana, and we were happy with our blushing tomato. :)

The tomato finished ripening up on the counter top, and when it was completely ripe the other tomato was still green. It was like the "ripen" switch had been turned on! We did a taste test with the forced ripe garden tomato and a store bought "vine ripened" tomato... and ours still tasted WAY better. :) The second tomato ripened up exactly 10 days later.

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©2012-2013 Loving and Learning on the High Plains. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://www.homeschoolhighplains.blogspot.com

5 Days of Fun Farm Science: Milk Fat Trick

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Here at our house we enjoy lot of good farm fresh milk with all the cream. We even regularly visit the farm where we pick up our milk, and recently had the chance to admire a sweet new jersey calf.

This fun science experiment uses milk to show how soap molecules work. It works especially well with full fat milk, which is what we get when we shake up a fresh jug of farm fresh milk. :)

Because we learned that:

Soap is actually a very long molecule that has one hydrophillic end and one hydrophobic end. The water sticks/bonds with the hydrophillic end and the oil sticks/bonds to the hydrophobic end. Two opposing molecules with the soap in the middle. -About.com

... we found a fun experiment via Supercharged Science that illustrates this action. Here's our version of what we did. (you know we had to tweak it!)

Materials used:

• whole milk 
• water mixed with cornstarch (about 1/2 tbs to 1 cup)
• food dye
• bowls
• liquid soap

In one bowl we had whole milk, and in the other bowl we put the corn starch mixture (which is milky, but has no fat or oils). We added the food coloring and then a small drop of soap. It was amazing to watch the swirls of color as the soap molecule was "searching for fats" with one end and "searching for water" with the other. It continued to swirl for quite a while. The corn starch only swirled for a second or two from the disturbance. There was no fat to "chase". It was fun to come back later and add one more drop of soap. The  burst of color swirls started all over in the milk! No reaction in the other bowl.

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©2012-2013 Loving and Learning on the High Plains. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://www.homeschoolhighplains.blogspot.com

5 Days of Fun Farm Science: Carbon Dioxide and Photosynthesis

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Photosynthesis is a big part of life here on our hobby farm. We have a huge garden, and a field full of corn (thanks to our neighbors' help). My kids understand pretty well about plants using the sun. We were talking recently about what plants take in and what they put out. Pretty simply out: a plant takes in the carbon dioxide in the air, and with water and energy from the sun transforms it to oxygen and glucose (plant sugar).

Through Supercharged Science we found the idea of this experiment to see if a plant in a closed space can add enough extra oxygen to keep a candle lit longer.

Materials we used:

• candle in a short base (and a way to light it)
• large glass jar
• pie pan of water
• stopwatch
• leafy plants of various sizes

The kids theorized (as did I) that the candle would stay lit slightly longer with the plant inside.

We did created a closed system by inverting the jar into a pan of water which the lit candle was setting in. We used a gallon jar and we repeated the entire progression of steps twice.

• With nothing in the jar the candle extinguished in 1.13 min. on our first try, and 1.01 min the second time. 
• With a small piece of kochia plant it extinguished in 55 seconds and 44 seconds on the second round.
• With a large plant of kochia (filling 1/4 of the jar) it took 53 seconds and 46 seconds.
• With a sunflower leaf (large) it took 45 seconds.

It seems the leaves displace more oxygen than they can replace in less than a minute, although the large kochia was slightly better. We also observed a cool effect of the vacuum pulling water up into the jar!

Even though our theory was disproved, we illustrated an important point in doing science experiments: minimizing variables.

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©2012-2013 Loving and Learning on the High Plains. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://www.homeschoolhighplains.blogspot.com

Preview of next week:

Oh yes, we've been having fun! Look for a great post every day of next week. (While we run off to the fair) :)

And that's not all...

it's part of a HUGE blog hop!

©2012-2013 Loving and Learning on the High Plains. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://www.homeschoolhighplains.blogspot.com