Amanda and Elena's 7th birthday is coming up, and we're going to have a smaller event this time. They can invite 5 friends each over to our house for a small party. Donna and I thought it would be neat to make it a science-themed party. I don't think the girls care as long as there's cake and ice cream.
So she and I are brainstorming what to do during the party. A few ideas we've thought of are making "magic muck" (a non-newtonian liquid that stiffens when you squeeze it), "wave in a bottle", a model volcano (with baking soda and vinegar), and "states of matter" which would culminate in making homemade ice cream in insulated bags. I also wanted to do something with dry ice, since it looks so neat.
But dry ice is too dangerous to let a bunch of 7-year-olds play with it, so that won't be as interactive. That is not ideal, but then I started thinking that we could other neat things that were more demonstrations than participatory activities, if we went down that road:
- capturing different gasses and see how they react to a flame: hydrogen & oxygen via electrolysis, carbon dioxide from the dry ice, and regular air
- blowing a up a balloon with carbon dioxide (dry ice in water, and baking soda and vinegar) and oxygen (hydrogen peroxide + a catalyst)
- making a foam fountain via hydrogen peroxide
I'd want to try these out this weekend before I tried them in front of a bunch of 7-year-olds, but I think I could make it pretty fun for the group, even when they couldn't help with much of it.
Even if we decide not to do these at the party, I think I'm going to have to try the foam fountain anyway, just because it looks so neat.