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 :-)

pH in the kitchen

We extended our learning about acids and bases to the pH scale. I intentionally did not over edit the video video because it really shows the learning process so the video is longer than normal. By the end of the video Matthew was better at matching the pH paper against the pH chart than I was. Matthew also introduced the video with out any prompting from me - he's picking it up quickly. Again using the A, B and N tabs really seems to have helped provide a framework for learning. Make sure you watch till the end. Matthew spontaneously started writing down all that we had been going through. It was almost like he was writing up his lab book. I could learn some lessons from him!!

What a candle needs to burn

Here is our second video and the first under the title of "Khemistry kid" It was really interesting to Matthew start to think about why we can't fill the glass up and how that relates to how much oxygen is in the air. I have also noticed that he still remembers what combustion is a few months later....

Reflections of a chemical dad

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