Cubes and Color

How does color affect how fast an ice cube will melt?! Investigate the heat absorbing capacity of different colors by placing ice cubes on various colors of construction paper (make sure you include black and white). Do certain colors reflect or absorb more light? Lay the paper and cubes in a super sunny spot. Then, make a prediction, create a list of what cubes you think will melt the fastest. Have kids write the color names in a column, starting with the color they think will make the ice cube melt the fastest and ending with the color they think will melt the ice cube the slowest. Create a graph of the kids' predictions. 

Green Planet suggests a twist on the experiment. Kids test colored cubes on white paper. They use food coloring to create different colors. For a white cube they add milk. To create a black cube they add cola. They place one colored cube on each piece of white paper. Which cube will melt the fastest?!

Solar Energy Balloon Blow Up!

Explore the power of the sun's heat by blowing up a balloon on a bottle! Kids paint one soda bottle white and the other black. Once dry, they attach a small balloon to the necks of their bottles. Then, they put the bottles out in the sun for a solar reaction!

Kids see that the air in the black bottle will make the balloon expand! The white bottle doesn't heat up as fast. Check out the experiment here!

Solar Water

Investigate renewable energy, while exploring the water cycle, with this fun experiment from Agoosa! Kids magically turn salt water into fresh water with the help of solar energy!

how to:
Pour 2 cups of water into a large bowl.
Mix 3 tsp of salt into the water. Taste the water, it's super salty!
Place a small empty bowl or cup inside of the larger bowl. 
Cover with plastic wrap and place outside in the sun.
Either place a rock on top of the bowl or secure the wrap with a rubber band (to keep plastic wrap tightly secured on the bowl).
Keep the bowl outside for 1 to 3 days (until you get enough purified water into your small bowl to taste).
Compare the water in the larger bowl to the water in the smaller bowl. Do you taste the difference?!

what's happening?!
The sun's rays will heat the water, causing it to evaporate!
Salt is too heavy to evaporate; so, it stays in the larger bowl.
Condensation will occur, creating water droplets on the plastic wrap.
Gravity makes the large droplets drip into the "collection container" (your small bowl) - creating fresh water!

Keep It Cool!

This experiment comes from Zoom! Kids are divided up into groups. Each group gets two ice cubes and two paper or plastic bowls to hold the cubes. They create a cube container for one of their ice cubes. The other cube will be exposed to the sunlight with no protection.

Cube Container: Kids use their creativity and construct some type of container that will keep their ice cube from melting in the hot sun. Who's cube will last the longest?! Compare the ice cubes that had no protection to the cubes that were placed in cube containers. Is there a difference?

materials:

2 bowls (for each cube to sit in)

1 shoebox

wax paper

foil

newspaper

masking tape

rubberbands

free choice - kids come up with a material they think will work!

Also, check out Popsicle Preservation!

Sun Baked Bricks

Make your own mini bricks, while learning about soil composition and solar energy, from 60 Second Science. All you need is clay-rich soil, water, ice cube tray (or mold), dry grass, and a sunny spot outside. Place your soil into a bowl, add a little bit of water, and stir around with a craft stick until you get a "thick" mud consistency. Next, mix in your grass. Then, press your mixture into your mold and smooth your bricks out on top. Now, bake your bricks in the sun! Talk about how the sun is a form of radiant energy, as well as thermal energy. The sun is a renewable resource that we can utilize to heat things up! When the bricks are ready, remove them from the mold and build something! You can keep your bricks natural or paint them. You can make houses for action figures, caves for animal figurines, etc. 

Popsicle Preservation

Can you keep a popsicle preserved from the sun's radiant energy? Kids test out a variety of insulators to see what type of material will preserve a popsicle the best, preventing the transformation of solar energy to thermal energy! Kids work in teams using aluminum foil, packing peanuts, bubble wrap, paper towels, newspaper, as well as a variety of other items to construct insulators. Then, they put their protected popsicles out in the sun. Along with the insulated popsicles, put one uninsulated, unwrapped popsicle outside as well. Who's popsicle can withstand the heat? As soon as the uninsulated popsicle melts, check your protected popsicles. Then, record your findings.

Solar Power

Go green, learn about radiant and thermal energy, and have a snack! Upcycle a pizza box into a solar oven! Whip up smores, roast a hot dog, munch on nachos, or zap leftovers. The oven heats up to 275 degrees. Click here for written instructions!