A Party to Make Bill Nye Proud

Last Saturday was Maren's science-themed birthday party. She loves all things scientific and knew that we could have some pretty great activities, so we went for it with gusto! The mad scientist herself greeted guests.

We got right down to pizza and cake so that we'd have lots of time for the experiments. All of the kids were really good sports, crumpling newspaper until their arms gave out and testing the effect of gravity on the cardiovascular system, but the fun really started when we took the party over to the park.


They discovered all sorts of interesting things about bubbles—what techniques produce many small bubbles, how to blow a really big bubble, how to pierce a bubble and even how to blow a bubble inside a bubble inside a bubble.


Even more exciting was the chance to make their own bubble wands that blew gigantic bubbles. Check out Maren's huge bubble worm thing up there!


And the grand finale was the "explosions" set of experiments, which required a restricted access launch area and the use of safety goggles. We had lemon rockets, alka-seltzer rockets and the Coke-Mentos geyser, which is what Maren's friend had just set off in the picture above. The most successful of these three explosions was actually the least complicated: put half and Alka-Seltzer tablet in a film canister, add a teaspoon of water, quickly cap it, shake it up, set it cap-side down and wait for the pressure to build until the thing shoots up twenty or thirty feet into the air. The kids had fun experimenting with different amounts of water and Alka-Seltzer.

To be honest, birthday parties often take an awful lot out of me, but by the time this one was finished I had had at least as much fun as the kids did. Yay for science!