by Rachel Wells
It’s time to pack up the pink and red hearts and bring on the rainbows! St. Patrick’s Day will be here in a few weeks and there are so many fun ways to celebrate with science and STEM.
Check out these 6 awesome rainbow themed activities to help you take advantage of this fun day.
STEM Challenges
Rainbow Bridge
Materials: Play Doh, pipe cleaners, paper cups, and gold coins.
Challenge: Using Play Doh and pipe cleaners, create a rainbow that is strong enough to hold a cup of gold coins. Can you make a structure sturdy enough to hold 50 coins? How about 100 coins?
Penny Bridge
Materials: Pennies (or other coins will work too)
Challenge: Use pennies to create a rainbow shape.
Science
Growing Crystals
Materials: Boiling water, borax, string, pipe cleaners, a jar, and a pencil.
Step-By-Step:
1. Bend your pipe cleaners into your desired shape.
2. Tie a piece of string onto your pipe cleaner. Tie the other end of the string to the center of the pencil.
3. Boil 2 cups of water. Stir 8 tablespoons of borax into the water until it dissolves.
4. Fill your jar with the borax solution.
5. Place your pipe cleaner into the jar. The pencil should stay on the top of the jar to keep the pipe cleaner suspended. Make sure the pipe cleaner isn’t touching the sides of the jar.
6. Leave the jar for at least 24 hours so the crystals can grow. When you are ready to remove the crystal, gently tug the string out of the jar.
Rainbow in a Jar
Materials: Sugar, warm water, food coloring, 4 bowls, an eye dropper, and a small jar.
Step-By-Step:
1. Measure out ½ cup of warm water into each of your 4 bowls.
2. Add 2 drops of food coloring to each bowl. Red, yellow, green, and blue will make for the best results.
3. Add 2 tablespoons of sugar to the red bowl, 4 tablespoons of sugar to the yellow bowl, 6 tablespoons of sugar to the green bowl, and 8 tablespoons of sugar to the blue bowl.
4. Stir the sugar until it’s dissolved. Because of the increasing density of the sugar in the water, the green and blue bowls will take more effort to dissolve.
5. Pour the blue water into the bottom of the jar. Use an eye dropper to slowly drop the green water in next, followed by the yellow and red. GO SLOW!
Due to the increasing density of the sugar water, the colors will remain separated, and stack on top of each other like a rainbow!
Racing Rainbows
Materials: Paper towel, 2 cups, water, markers
Step-By-Step:
1. Cut a paper towel in half so you have a long strip about 4 inches wide.
2. Use markers to color thick blocks/stripes on both ends of the paper towel. These should be a few inches long.
3. Fill 2 cups with water and place one of the colored ends of the paper towel in each cup.
4. Watch as the colors race up the paper towel until they meet at the top, completing the rainbow.
Skittles Rainbows
Materials: Plate, water, skittles
Step-By-Step:
1. Arrange your skittles around the edge of the plate. This experiment works best if you put a few of each color next to each other.
2. Slowly pour water on the middle of the plate until the water reaches the skittles candies.
3. Watch as the food coloring spreads creating an awesome rainbow swirl.
