Continue reading »]]> This past week in STEM, we tested some pretty fun myths. We had such a great time last week, so I wanted to continue mybusting one more week.

The girls have been asking to do experiments with candy (exploding candy) for months. I thought, this week, we should try it out. There is a myth that if you drink soda and eat pop rocks, that your stomach will explode. The girls were up for testing this myth out (in cups of course! ). They also couldn’t help but sample along the way. We did our control first and tested to see if the pop rocks would explode in water. We dropped them in and they fizzed, but nothing more. Next we tried them in soda. They did the same. Just fizz… although some of the girls thought they fizzed a bit more in the soda. Any brave girls that wanted to, were allowed to drink the remaining soda in the cup. No worries, all stomachs were still intact :). Overall this myth was tasty, but busted!

Our next myth: butter and bread. We wanted to test out the myth that bread always lands butter-side down. The girls were able to throw their piece off the second floor. The results were not what we predicted. Both times, 7 out of 12 slices landed butter-side up. We thought the weight of the butter would force it to go down. Another myth busted. Science is awesome!

Here’s a video of the bread going down!

Continue reading »]]> Winter session of stem club has begun! I cannot believe that we have 13 girls for this STEM club session! They were excited to begin! For our first session, I decided to try some fun science experiments that were inspired by the television show Mythbusters. It’s a great show, and I love the idea of trying experiments  out to see if they work.

I’ve been teaching third grade for 5 years, and each year I teach a unit on electricity.  I have heard that you can pass a current through play dough, but I have never tried it. I thought it would be a fun experiment for my STEM club girls to do! The best part was that I would be learning right along with them!

We started by watching a short clip on Mythbusters.

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Then we made play dough on a hot pad using salt, flour, oil, cream of tarter, and food coloring. The girls took turns pouring in the ingredients and mixing.

<img src=”http://sites.harleyschool.org/afterschoolgirlsstem/files/2015/01/IMG_0614.jpg” alt=”IMG_0614.JPG” class=”alignnone size-full”

We then talked about circuits and got to the experimenting part. Could they get a bulb to light? A buzzer to work? A motor?

The girls loved finding out!