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Thursday, January 12, 2012

kitchen science experiment #1- fruit battery

Some of you might not know this yet but after Christmas break I began picking up Mickey at 11:30 and homeschooling him in the afternoon. Why just the afternoon? Well, in the morning he has choir, orchestra, gym, music, library, and art(not all on the same days!) and he really enjoys those activities. So we decided to pick him up right before recess and lunch. We eat together and do Math and some other stuff(writing, Social Studies, Science, reading- depends on the day). He takes breaks in between and the new Math curriculum I'm using is making WAY more sense to him. It is working really well for Mick to have the one on one attention and most of all to not have to spend his whole evening doing homework after sitting in a desk all day. We are always done with everything by 2:30ish and then he plays outside with his brother and sister when they get home. And I get to spend time with my wonderful, amazing boy and do fun activities with him that we usually don't have time to do. WIN-WIN!
I bought a kitchen science kit from Hobby Lobby(using my coupon of course!) and today we tried one of them: making a fruit battery out of lemon halves.
He loved it! Mickey could definitely do science-y things all day...
He asked if he could start his own blog to share his science experiments, lego creations, and comics on and I told him I thought that would be an excellent idea.
So watch for that coming soon!

So how did this work? Well... The forks act like the positive electrodes of a battery. They are plated with a metal that is less reactive than zinc plates we were using(came with the kit). When the forks and the zinc plates are inserted into the lemon, a chemical reaction takes place. Electrons move from the zinc plates to the forks to form a current, thus activating the watch. The lemon juice helps to conduct electricity. It would work with a potato, a grapefruit, or soft drinks also. Really cool! I am learning a lot too!

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