The Kempiak Laboratory

Professor Baylee opened up our Party of Five science laboratory for her mad scientist friends today for a round of ‘testing’ and ‘experimenting’. It was her belated birthday party and well worth the wait! We were oozing with fun!

Our first order of business, critical thinking style, was to have our mad scientists figure out how to get a hard boiled egg inside a glass bottle without harming it. Do you have any idea? Our laboratory of scientists do now, knowing what happens when molecules get heated up! Hint…just light a birthday candle that’s pieced into the egg and see what happens!

There are many names for it; Gak, Goo, and Slime, but no matter what you call it, our science party wouldn’t have been complete without making this rubbery, slimy, stringy putty sensation! With only a few ingredients and quite a bit of stirring action on each scientist’s part, we were quickly on our way to learning about the properties of polymers. (Don’t you just love the expressions on Professor Matthew and Professor Kristin’s faces?)

We were erupting with fun as the scientists made their own volcanoes and brought them outdoors for the lava to freely flow. We were all fired up and excited to explore one facet of earth science!



5-4-3-2-1…Blast Off! Each scientist made personal rockets out of film canisters and had a chance to launch them as well, using water and Alka Seltzer tablets.
Have you done the experiment with Mentos and diet soda before? We did! Who would have ever guessed that dropping those chewy mints into a bottle of diet soda would produce such a gigantic reaction, a 20 foot geyser! With red, white, and blue sodas (colored with food coloring) we set the three of them off simultaneously for a ‘homemade’ firework show that the kids greatly cheered about.

Our drink of the day was my version of those yummy Sonic Cherry Limeade. To make it “science like” we filled it with dry ice so it would “smoke”. What a hit!
{Note to self…if I ever need to get the kids to eat or drink anything ever again…dry ice may be the key ingredient!}
Our experiments weren't the only things erupting with fun! We served an explosive, steamy chocolaty cake with hot cherry lava pouring out. Poor Baylee, when it was time for her to blow out the sparkler candles, she was a bit frightened and backed up quite a bit. Boy did that girl have to show off her lungs and ability to blow a lot of air from far away!

This party could have lasted days. In fact as the laboratory closed for the day, Professor Baylee pleaded, “Can I have another science party next year?” To me, why not…there are so many other experiments just waiting up my lab coat to pull out!

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