VanCleave's Science Fun

Your Guide to Science Projects, Fun Experiments, and Science Research

Shortening

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I love finding fun facts, such as why  solid cooking fat is called  “shortening.” It is a very “sciencey” reason based on the chemistry of baking bread. Dough is mixture of flour and water. The combination of these chemicals results in the formation of gluten. gluten A tough, elastic protein.  Gluten gives dough firmness but […]

Diffusion

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I added the squiggles to the photo to represent bad odors. The photo represents Salty, my husband’s dog who is presently peacefully  sleeping on a warm blanket in my office. Smells from his body are definitely diffusing throughout my office. So why do I have a smelly dog in my office? Its a long story […]

Pressure Cooker

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While  searching for a picture of a pressure cooker, I found the one shown. The mess in the photo is the result of the cook opening a pressure cooker too early. The mess shown in the photo is nothing compared to  having an erupting  volcano of green pea soup splatter your ceiling and walls. YEP! […]

Science Fair Projects: Scientific Method

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Notes from Janice’s Desk Scientists make observations, identify problems, ask questions, guess at the answer (hypothesis), experiment to test their guess, collect and analyze data, and then make a conclusion stating where the result supported their hypothesis or not. These are the steps for a process called the scientific method. Do scientists always follow the […]

Chemistry: Stain Removal

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Notes from Janice’s Desk I love blackberries but seem to always drop them on my clothes. Actually, I am worse than a small child when it comes to staining my clothes with the foods I eat.This means that I have lots of clothes that have food stains on them. While researching food stains I discovered […]

Science Fair Project: Alum Crystals

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Kids love growing crystals. The crystal shown in the photo appears to have been grown on a colored yarn string. It is interesting that the yarn seems to wind its way through the crystal. I also find the size of the crystal interesting. Determining how to grow large alum crystals could be a great science […]

Displacement

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Kids get in trouble for “bird walking,” which means to start thinking about other stuff instead of the teacher’s topic. As a kid, I was very guilty of this. But, I was bad about doing it when I taught and have a hard time with this as a writer. For example, I was studying about […]

How to Start a Science Fair Project

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Question: How do I start a science fair project? Answer: This is the one question that I am often asked about science fair projects. To help teachers and kids with Getting Started Ideas, I am developing ideas. At this time, my examples for different topic may vary. This is because with each new topic, I […]