Mark Langtry's five science experiments for kids to try at home
Mark Langtry head of science and sport at Explorium
Mark Langtry is passionate about science and making it accessible for all from a young age. The Director of Sports and Science at Explorium in Dublin, he is at the forefront of their mission to make science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) fun and accessible for children and he hasn’t let a global pandemic stop him.
“The world has changed so much in the last few months and we really had to pivot and find new ways to engage children in the wonders of STEM,” Mark says.
Mark was involved in making videos for Explorium during lockdown for children and their parents so they could experience the wonders of science using items found around their home.
“We wanted to make sure that everybody can still engage with science, we wanted to make sure it’s accessible for everyone. That’s one of the most important things in science, to make it accessible. You can do what you can, where you are with what you have.
We pick things that everyone would have at home but we show them the fun you can have with them and learn from it. They were making rockets from things, they were making musical instruments, they were making cannons, they were investigating air and different properties of things, all with things they can find at home.”
Accessibility is so important to Mark that he gave away his own scientific equipment to children during lockdown.
“I had a lot of science equipment lying around and there were lots of kids stuck at home. We try to make things easy for people to engage with science so I just gathered up all my science equipment and sent it out to kids for free. I felt they could do more with it than I could,” Mark says.
“I was just thinking of kids who are maybe not able to get these things at home or maybe they can’t pop to the shops and grab a few of the supplies in the videos online. Some people were in different circumstances than others, we want to make sure everyone can access and engage with science.”
Mark has enjoyed making videos while Explorium’s doors remain closed, from live experiments with zoologist Ali Knight to virtual Space Camp with Dr Nora Patten.
“Myself and Nora brought our viewers on a journey of what it’s like to train to be an astronaut. It was awesome. We would learn about the universe, the solar system, Earth and other planets, but then also what exact training you need to do to be an astronaut.
"Everyone wants to know if they have what it takes to become an astronaut. We went race car driving to see if we had what it takes to withstand the forces during a rocket launch, we went indoor skydiving, we went exploring in some caves.”
Mark says it’s important for children to have role models encouraging their curiosity.
“Technology rules the world. You need to understand how technology works or you’ll be left behind and you won’t be able to make the right decisions for yourself and for the world. We have some big questions and challenges that we face like climate change that people need to understand how it works to make the correct decisions for the planet," he says.
“I think all kids are natural scientists. They do exactly what scientists do: they explore, they experiment, they listen, they observe what’s happening and then they make conclusions. That’s how they learn. I was no different. The important thing is that you’re in an environment that nurtures that natural curiosity.
“My parents were excellent at allowing me to pursue my curiosity. I was fascinated by the sky. I just loved looking up at the stars and wondering what’s out there. They bought me a telescope.”
Mark adds: “If you give a child the opportunity and put them in the correct environment, they’ll follow their passion. I was interested in science when I was younger and that passion just grew as I got older. That’s when I started studying Theoretical Physics in UCD and my passion just grew from there.”
A former Shamrock Rovers footballer, Mark finds blending science with things kids are interested in is a great way to keep their attention.
“It’s not only that you understand how the world works, but if you’re a footballer, you understand how to kick a football to make it do certain things. Kids really relate to stuff like that, things that they like, things that are relevant in their lives,” Mark says.
“I played professional football for 10 years so I understood how important science is in a player’s performance. Footballers track their data using sports trackers so they can see how fast they can run, how high they can jump and they can see if their training is working. If not, they can change it and they can get faster.
"All the best athletes in the world are using science to help them improve. If you can teach a kid some piece of information that helps them run faster or jump higher or make a better decision, they love that kind of stuff.”
- Plastic bottle
- Balloon
- Vinegar
- Baking soda
- Funnel or piece of paper
- Food dye (optional)
Draw a scary face on the balloon before you blow it up
Pour vinegar into your bottle (~100ml)
Add some food colouring.
Then, using a funnel (or a rolled up piece of paper) fill your balloon about half full with baking soda.
Attach your balloon to the top of the bottle (making sure no baking soda falls in yet).
When you're ready, lift the balloon, the baking soda drops into the vinegar, and your balloon will start to expand
The baking soda (a base) and the vinegar (an acid) react together and create carbon dioxide gas (and salt and water). This CO2 gas expands and increases the pressure inside the bottle, and causes the balloon to inflate!
The more CO2 that is released, the bigger the balloon gets, and the bigger and scarier your drawing gets as the rubber gets stretched apart!
With some very simple ingredients you can create your very own blob monster and explore the weird world of Non-Newtonian Fluids
- Warm Water
- Cornflour
- Mixing bowl
- Food dye (optional)
Mix approx 1 part water (coloured with food dye if you wish) with 2 parts cornflour in your mixing bowl.
Use your hands to mix it about until it forms a nice gloopy fluid. Then the fun begins! Experiment tapping, pressing and hitting the mixture and see what happens!!!
Most things either act like a solid, liquid or a gas. Not Oobleck. A little bit of pressure changes everything.
Applying a force to the liquid Oobleck causes the floating bits of cornflour to suddenly clump together and it acts like a solid. Move slowly through it, and it remains a liquid. Try rolling it in a ball in your hands, or slapping it to see if it splashes.
Make sure to throw your Oobleck in the bin when you are finished playing with it. Not down the sink, where it can clog it up... that’s the last thing you want after a day of fun!
- Bottle or Jar
- Water
- Sunflower Oil (or vegetable oil)
- Fizzy Tablets
- Food colouring (optional)
Pour some water into the bottle (up to about 2 inches is fine).
Carefully pour the sunflower oil in the bottle, filling it almost to the top.
Add some drops of food colouring in, and watch as they fall through the oil and settle on top of the water.
Drop about half a fizzy tablet into the bottle, and watch your lava lamp come to life. You can add more fizzy tablets to keep it going!
Oil and water have different densities, so they do not mix. The oil is less dense (or lighter) than water, so it floats on top. When you add the fizzy tablet, it falls down into the water and a chemical reaction occurs, releasing a carbon dioxide gas (CO2).
These gas bubbles are lighter than the water, and oil, so rise to the top (carrying some of the food colouring with it) and escape out the bottle. The food colouring that just hitched a ride with some CO2, falls all the way back down to the bottom of the bottle!
This process repeats over and over until the CO2 runs out!
- PVA glue
- Baking Soda
- Contact lens solution (one that contains boric acid)
- Mixing Bowl and teaspoon
- Food colouring (optional)
Pour some PVA glue into the bowl (1/2 cup)
Add some food colouring and if you’re feeling crazy try some glitter.
Add a teaspoon of baking soda.
Then add approx 1 teaspoon of contact lens solution and mix it all together. Now squeeze, stretch and play with your super slime!
Glue is made of long chains of molecules called polymers. Contact lens solution contains boric acid which helps bind the glue molecules together.
The bread soda releases the borate ions from the contact lens solution and they get to work, cross linking and hooking those long chains of molecules together to form slime!
- Milk (full fat)
- A plate
- Food colouring
- Washing up liquid
- Cotton bud
Pour some milk onto the plate
Drop some blobs of food colouring into the milk.
Put a drop of liquid soap onto a cotton bud (You can also just use your finger)
Dip the cotton bud (or your finger) into the colours in the milk and watch the swirling explosion of colour!
This milk colour explosion is all thanks to surface tension and the bonding of molecules When we dip the soap in the milk, it breaks the surface tension layer, which is like a very thin 'skin' on the surface of the milk.
It also starts connecting with fat molecules in the milk. We can see all of this movement thanks to our food colouring getting pushed out of the way, as the soap searches for more free fat molecules in this beautiful swirling rainbow.
