Many people think science is difficult and needs special equipment, but that’s not true.
Author
Audrey O’Grady
Associate Professor in Biology, University of Limerick
Science can be explored at home using everyday materials. Everyone, especially children, naturally ask questions about the world around them, and science offers a structured way to find answers.
Misconceptions about the difficulty of science often stem from a lack of exposure to its fun and engaging side. Science can be as simple as observing nature, mixing ingredients or exploring the properties of objects. It’s not just for experts in white coats, but for everyone.
Don’t take my word for it. Below are three experiments that can be done at home with children who are primary school age and older.
Extract DNA from bananas
DNA is all the genetic information inside cells. Every living thing has DNA, including bananas.
Did you know you can extract DNA from banana cells?
What you need: ¼ ripe banana, Ziploc bag, salt, water, washing-up liquid, rubbing alcohol (from a pharmacy), coffee filter paper, stirrer.
What you do:
Place a pinch of salt into about 20ml of water in a cup.
Add the salty water to the Ziploc bag with a quarter of a banana and mash the banana up with the salty water inside the bag, using your hands. Mashing the banana separates out the banana cells. The salty water helps clump the DNA together.
Once the banana is mashed up well, pour the banana and salty water into a coffee filter (you can lay the filter in the cup you used to make the salty water). Filtering removes the big clumps of banana cells.
Once a few ml have filtered out, add a drop of washing-up liquid and swirl gently. Washing-up liquid breaks down the fats in the cell membranes which makes the DNA separate from the other parts of the cell.
Slowly add some rubbing alcohol (about 10ml) to the filtered solution. DNA is insoluble in alcohol, therefore the DNA will clump together away from the alcohol and float, making it easy to see.
DNA will start to precipitate out looking slightly cloudy and stringy. What you’re seeing is thousands of DNA strands – the strands to be seen even with a normal microscope. Scientists use powerful equipment to see individual strands.
Learn how plants ‘drink’ water
What you need: celery stalks (with their leaves), glass or clear cup, water, food dye, camera.
What you do:
- Fill the glass ¾ full with water and add 10 drops of food dye.
- Place a celery stalk into the glass of coloured water. Take a photograph of the celery.
- For two to three days, photograph the celery at the same time every day. Make sure you take a photograph at the very start of the experiment.
What happens and why?
All plants, such as celery, have vertical tubes that act like a transport system. These narrow tubes draw up water using a phenomenon known as capillarity.
Imagine you have a thin straw and you dip it into a glass of water. Have you ever noticed how the water climbs up the straw a little bit, even though you didn’t suck on it? This is because of capillarity.
In plants, capillarity helps move water from the roots to the leaves. Plants have tiny tubes inside them, like thin straws, called capillaries. The water sticks to the sides of these tubes and climbs up. In your experiment, you will see the food dye in the water make its way to the leaves.
Build a balloon-powered racecar
What you need: tape, scissors, two skewers, cardboard, four bottle caps, one straw, one balloon.
What you do:
- Cut the cardboard to about 10cm long and 5cm wide. This will form the base of your car.
- Make holes in the centre of four bottle caps. These are your wheels.
- To make the axles insert the wooden skewers through the holes in the cap. You will need to cut the skewers to fit the width of the cardboard base, but leave room for the wheels.
- Secure the wheels to the skewers with tape.
- Attach the axles to the underside of the car base with tape, ensuring the wheels can spin freely.
- Insert a straw into the opening of a balloon and secure it with tape, ensuring there are no air leaks.
- Attach the other end of the straw to the top of the car base, positioning it so the balloon can inflate and deflate towards the back of the car. Secure the straw with tape.
- Inflate the balloon through the straw, pinch the straw to hold the air, place the car on a flat surface, then release the straw.
What happens and why?
The inflated balloon stores potential energy when blown up. When the air is released, Newton’s third law of motion kicks into gear: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
As the air rushes out of the balloon (action), it pushes the car in the opposite direction (reaction). The escaping air propels the car forward, making it move across the surface.
Audrey O’Grady receives funding from Science Foundation Ireland. She is affiliated with Department of Biological Sciences, University of Limerick.
