Oct 30th--Halloween Horrors

Today, a 'C' day for science, we completed the following seven activities:

Haunted rock--we witnessed what a 'rattleback' did. It's modeled after a river rock that spins in one direction only. Spin it the way it doesn't want to spin it will stop and then spin in the opposite direction.

Lasers O' Death--we set up a fog machine and several lasers. We created the normal to a plane (a line perpendicular to a mirror) then bounced a second laser off of the mirror. We saw that the angle between the normal and the incident beam (the beam going into the mirror) was the same as the angle between the normal and the reflected beam. We also witnessed light scattering in the fog.

Have some Plasma---we worked with a plasma ball, discussed the states of matter (solid, liquid, gas, plasma and a new one, the Bose-Einstein Condensate. We saw how a fluorescent bulb could be lit by touching it to the plasma ball.

Electric chair--we used the Van de Graff generator to create electrical fields and then sparks. Some classes also saw how the fluorescent bulb would light when touched to the generator.

Celebrity Peep Cage Match--we placed a cat peep and a ghost peep under the vacuum jar and had them experience the low pressure of a partial vacuum.

Pumpkin Peril--We reacted Calcium Carbide with water inside a pumpkin, then added a spark to see what happened.

Death to Gummy Bears--we melted a small sample of Sodium Chlorate and deposited one gummy bear into the liquid--the results were spectacular.

Extra credit opportunity--take one of the above--write what we did and witnessed in class, then research the scientific principles behind the activity. Create a one page (single spaced, 12 font) explanation and be prepared to teach it to the class when we return from fall break.