Window to my Digital Soul

Science is something that can so often bore me. Why? Because it is often taught or presented in such a boring manner. Who wants to hear someone lecture about how a hydrogen fuel cell car works? Not me! I’d rather SEE how a hydrogen full cell car works. This is where Steve Spangler Science comes in. If you aren’t sure who Steve Spangler is, check out Wikipedia for the details.

The online store has some of the coolest science experiments I have ever seen. I have 4 curious kids so I knew that this was going to be a fun review. They sent me 3 products to review:

• Hydrogen Fuel Cell Car
• Water Cubes
• Mentos Geyser Tube

I’m not going to get into the specifics of what we learned in the experiments because I think the fun of doing an experiment is to make your create your own hypothesis and either prove or disprove it.

Hydrogen Fuel Cell Car

We started with the Hydrogren Fuel Cell Car. We were unable to watch the DVD that came with the kit because it was only compatible with Windows and I have a Mac. My 10 yr old daughter and I read through all the directions and began to put the car together. We did have a hard time with some of the directions not being really clear, but when I asked my 13 yr old son to help us out, he had an easier time with the directions.

I’m not sure if it makes a difference, but the directions tell you to use distilled water, but everywhere else on the box or in the list of items needed, it states just water. We had to put the project on hold while we ran for some distilled water because I wasn’t sure if it would make a difference.

Once we got the car put together and saw those bubbles come up and made the final connection, there was sheer excitement in the air. We did it! We made a hydrogen fuel cell car. It was really cool to see how it all worked. We went online and googled hydrogen fuel cell cars to learn more.

This is definitely a project for an older child. My 13 yr old son was the perfect age. I would say anything younger than 12, probably will need some help. Here is a video of our experience:

Water Cubes

Next, we moved on to the water cubes. These are small polymer clear cubes that grow to almost 200 times their size when put in water.  For this one, I enlisted the help of my 6 yr old son and 10 yr old daughter. They each got a plastic cup and dropped 3 tiny polymer cubes into the water and then we watched and waited and waited…for 24 hours. Ok, we didn’t stand and wait for 24 hours, but we kept checking the cubes quite often.

The kids thought this was really fun to watch because they could see gradual changes in the cube. They now want to take the whole bag of tiny cubes and put them in a tub full of water to see what happens. I have not decided yet wether we will do it.  Watch the video to see what we discovered.

Mentos Geyser Tube

We saved the one with the biggest punch for last. We had seen this one on YouTube before so my kids were really excited to do this at home. I gathered the whole family plus a few neighbor kids for the big explosion. We had purchased 2 bottles of diet Sprite (diet because the directions said it packs more for the punch and Sprite because it is less messy). I can explain this one, but it’s a whole lot better to show you.

If you are going to learn about science, the ONLY way to do that is to try some experiments. It sure beats a lecture. You can see the excitement in all my kids over these experiments. Usually when I recieve a box of product to review, my kids say, “oh more stuff for Mom.” But this time, they wanted to know when we got to do the experiments and were all yelling, “Cool! I love what you do, Mom.”

Steve Spangler Facebook Fan Page

Contest

Steve Spangler Science is offering to send one of my readers the same three experiments that I reviewed above. You must live in the U.S. to enter the contest. This would make an excellent educational and fun Christmas gift for your kids. Contest ends at 11:49pm EST on December 4, 2009. I will draw the name randomly on December 5th and winner will be notified via email.

Contest Entry

To enter
Visit the Steve Spangler Science online catalog and find ONE product that you think is pretty cool AND not mentioned here in my review. Put a link to it in the comments below.

For extra entries, please leave one separate comment below for each of the extra entries.

1. Visit the Steve Spangler blog and follow the RSS feed.
2. Follow @ScienceToys on Twitter.
3. Follow @Spanglerscience on Twitter.
4. Follow @Stevespangler on Twitter
5. Connect to my blog using the Google Friend Connect on the right side of my blog.
6. Follow my blog using either RSS or by email.

disclosure: Steve Spangler Science sent (free) me the 3 experiements for this review.