Learning about acids and bases

The first time we tried to make this video I did not have the colour standards in the backgroud. Matthew really didn't get the concept. After discussion with a more experienced science educator (my wife) I change the way we ran the experiment and used the colour standards. They definately helped get the point across.

Testing soda water really was a spur of the moment idea and definately got us thinking about where it fitted into our colour scale - make sure you watch to the end to see this.

If you would like to see our first attempt - here it is. Sorry about the lower quality.
It is really interesting to see how much more Matthew was able to understand through using the colour standards.
In our first take when I asked him why things were happening he kept coming back to “they are made of chemicals”.

Comments

The begining of khemistry kid

This was the first video we made. It really was inspired by #RealTimeChem week and was very spontaneous. I was washing up the dishes watching the oil moving around and changing when I added the dishwashing liquid. I thought - hey I could make a video of this with my son.... Interestingly at first I wasn't going to use the dialogue between me and my son. My wife told me I should and that gave birth to the khemistry kid :-)

Keep the camera rolling

After making a number of videos with Matthew I have noticed that the best stuff often happens once my planned experiment is over. Normally this is once I've stopped filming and have started cleaning up. This is the time when Matthew really starts to investigate things by himself. I am now careful not to stop the 'experiment' too early. Its fascinating the things that he picks up. I've noticed a similar thing happening when I do science shows. While I'm packing up a few kids come up and starts really looking, touching and learning. Recently I intentionally took advantage of this and after the main 'show' I set up some workstations where the students got to carry out the experiments by themselves. This definitely was the highlight and the students absolutely loved the chance to experience the science hands on by themselves. I'm keen to keep thinking about ways to encourage hands on exploring of science. Would love to hear any ideas you may have.

Learning about chemistry with purple cabbage

We started a series of video looking at acids and bases. Fittingly we used purple cabbage as our pH indicator. What I love about the first video is that Matthew eats the cabbage during it - this really highlights the important point that everything is made up of chemicals (currently a very 'dirty' word).

Reflections of a chemical dad

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