by Kendra Juskus
How great is God—beyond our understanding! The number of his years is past finding out. He draws up the drops of water, which distill as rain to the streams; the clouds pour down their moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind.
Job 36:26-28
We all gain an appreciation and reverence for the work of God’s hand when we understand it better. But this is especially true for children, whose lives depend on discovery. Their interest in the world around them is instinctive, and, when the adults in their lives are lucky, it brushes off on them.
The following activity is a simple and interesting way for kids to not only play with something that undoubtedly already captures their interest—water—but to learn about the properties of this crucial substance. Those properties run deep, and they reveal a lot not only about water, but about God’s ingenuity and creativity—gifts he has given to us and that kids are often the best at modeling.
The following activity comes from www.howstuffworks.com, and you can find other fun and easy home experiments at the website’s Science Projects For Kids series.
Cut and Connect Water Drops
Try to cut and connect water drops in this science project for kids on states of matter. You can split a water drop into smaller drops, and you can put small water drops together. Give it a try, and you’ll learn more about the surface tension of liquids.
What You’ll Need:
• Food color
• Glass
• Water
• Spoon
• Eyedropper
• Waxed paper
• Toothpick
• Drinking straw
Step 1: Put a drop of food color into a glass of water; stir until all of the water is evenly colored.
Step 2: Using an eyedropper, gently put several drops of the colored water onto a sheet of waxed paper. Look at the circular shape of the drops.
Step 3: With a toothpick, try to cut a water drop in half. Can you do it?
Step 4: With a drinking straw, blow gently to try to put two water drops together. Can you do it?
What Happened?
The surface tension of water pulls the water molecules in a drop toward each other. The molecules in the outer layer are drawn in toward the center of the drop, giving the drop its round shape. The surface tension that holds the water in that shape affected how the water acted when you exerted force on it with the toothpick and the straw.
Publications International, Ltd., the Editors of. “Science Projects for Kids: States of Matter.” 17 November 2007. HowStuffWorks.com. <http://home.howstuffworks.com/science-projects-for-kids-states-of-matter.htm> 12 November 2009.
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