How To Throw a Science Party

Here's How:

1. Order some dry ice. (At least three days before the party.) A half pound should be plenty. The dry ice directory will help you find places to purchase dry ice. You can also usually order small quantities from Baskin and Robbins. Other places to try are grocery stores(meat department), meat markets, and Wal-Mart. Sometimes the ice is free. Costs are generally minimal, less than $10.00.
   
   
2. Buy supplies. (Two days before the party.) From the grocery store get the cake mix (and icing if don't make it), sour salt, hot dogs, ground turkey, hamburger and hotdog buns, sour salt, baking soda, grape juice, and paper cups. From a teacher supply store, get a couple tubes or packages of iron filings and various magnets. Get a medium size horseshoe magnet and several small rectangular magnets for each child. If you plan to use a plastic sheet to protect your floor, get that as well.
   
   
3. Bake the birthday cake. (The day before the party.) Try to add food coloring that will make the cake and the icing an unusual color, a color not usually seen in food, especially cakes. Adding blue food coloring to white cake mix will make a bluish cake, while adding it to a yellow cake mix will make a green cake. The less appealing the color, the better! Do the same thing with the icing. Add colors to make it unappealing. You can even ice the cake so it looks "lumpy."
   
   
4. Prepare the food. (The morning of the party.) Soak the hotdogs in green food coloring until you're ready to cook them. Mix the ground turkey with blue or yellow food coloring. It has to be ground turkey because the food coloring won't work well with ground beef. If you want to really have fun with it, sprinkle the buns with green food coloring.
   
   
5. Prepare a space for the experiments. (After you get the food ready.) If it's a nice, warm day outside, you might want to set things up outside, since some of the experiments can get sloppy. Otherwise, lay out a plastic sheet underneath the kitchen table or wherever you plan to let the children experiment. You need enough room for each child to have a little space at a table.
   
   
6. Prepare the sour salt experiment. For each child, put six teaspoons of sour salt in one small cup and three teaspoons of soda in another small cup. Stack these two cups and put one stack inside one of the larger cups. Each child will then have a small cup with sour salt and a small cup with baking soda inside a large cup.
   
   
7. Prepare the magnet experiment. Get a large cup for each child and place one horseshoe magnet and a couple of smaller magnets inside. Keep the iron filings handy.
   
   
8. Prepare dry ice experiment. Get a large metal bowl, a pile of coins (pennies, dimes, nickles, quarters), and a small paper cup for each child. Put some coins in each cup; then stack the cups. If possible, you can put the cups in the metal bowl.
   
   
9. Let the party begin! Dry Ice Experiment One. Give each child a cup with coins. Put the dry ice in the metal bowl (using gloves or tongs) and have the children touch the dry ice with the coins (not their fingers!). Warn them not to touch the ice with their fingers. Ask them what they think is happening (They'll hear a "screaming" noise caused by the escaping gas pressing against the coins.)
   
   
10. Dry Ice Experiment Two. Pour a cup of warm water into the bowl with the dry ice. Ask the children what's happening. It "steams." Dry ice is actually a frozen gas -- carbon dioxide (CO2). When the warm water touches the cold CO2, the water condenses and forms a fog that is condensed water mixed with CO2 gas. CO2 is heavier than oxygen so the steam falls to the ground; it doesn't rise to the ceiling.
    
    
11. Dry Ice Experiment Three. Have the children "scoop" some of the fog into a cup and tell them to smell it. That is what the planet Venus smells like! The atmosphere of Venus is made up of C02.
    
    
12. Magnets Experiments. Give the children the cups with the magnets. Tell them to get the horseshoe magnet, but leave the small magnets inside. Pour some water into the cups. The children must get the magnets out of the cup without getting their hands wet. (See if they figure out that they can use the horseshoe magnets to drag the smaller magnets up the side of the cups.) Sprinkle some iron filings in the cups and tell them to move the magnet around the outside of the cup to see what happens.
    
    
13. Sour Salt and Baking Soda. Give each child a set of the cups prepared earlier. Fill a small cup with water and pour the water into the large glass for each child. Ask them what they think will happen when they pour in water to each small cup. Then have them do it. Nothing will happen. Then tell them to pour the contents of each small cup into their large cup. It will fizz. The citric acid reacts with the carbonate in the soda, creating bubbles of carbon dioxide.
    
    
14. Make Grape Pop. If the children want to, they can now make their own grape pop. Empty the large glasses of the the soda, citric acid, and water solution. Fill the glasses half full with grape juice, then have the children add six teaspoons of sour salt and three teaspoons of soda into the grape juice. Voila! Grape pop!
    
    
15. Feed the Crowd. Cook the food and serve it covered. Before uncovering it, ask the children how they think vision affects appetite. You can tell them that food that looks "funny" is often not safe to eat so nature is protecting us by making us not want to eat food that doesn't look right. Then uncover the green hot dogs, blue burgers and green spotted buns. Ask them if it looks appetizing! Children who didn't want to have grape "pop" can be served blue milk!
    
    

Tips:

1. Household Supplies
   Some of what you need for the party are usually found around the house. You'll want to make sure you have them on hand, though. Here's what you'll need: various coins, water, large metal bowl, and a water pitcher.
   
   
2. Optional Science Experiment Book Two weeks or so before the party, you might want to pay a visit to the local libary and look for science experiment books for children. They often have some fun, easy, and safe experiments for children that you could use at the party. You want to get it early so that you have time to look through it and buy any supplies you might need. It's not necessary, though. Everything you need to know for a successful party is here.
   
   
3. Getting Dry Ice
   You might want to start checking for dry ice a week before the party in case you run into trouble locating some.
   
   
4. Using Dry Ice
   Instead of using coins in step nine, you can give each child a spoon to use. They'll hold the spoon by the handle and touch the ice with the bowl of the spoon. It's less fun than the coins because each type of coin will make a different noise, but it's a little safer for young children.
   
   
5. Science Video
   All the children don't arrive at a party at the same time, so you might want to get a science video for the children to watch while waiting for everyone to arrive. Kids who like science love the Bill Nye the Science Guy videos and these are often available at the library. If not, one would make a perfect birthday gift for your child! He or she can open that particular gift before the children arrive.

What You Need:

• white or yellow cake mix, icing (home made or purchased)
• citric acid -- found in ethnic food section of most grocery stores as sour salt
• hot dogs, ground turkey, hot dog buns, hamburger buns
• baking soda
• paper cups, small (for bathroom use) and large
• a variety of food coloring
• grape juice
• dry ice and winter gloves to handle it (never touch dry ice)
• magnets and iron filings -- available at teacher supply stores
• Optional: plastic sheet for floor, available where paint supplies are sold