VanCleave's Science Fun

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

Earthworm Habitats

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Question: Do earthworms only live in compost piles? Answer: No, earthworms are found in soil on every continent except Antarctica, where it is too cold for them to survive. Earthworms are found in three basic parts of the soil. For imformation about these locations, see EARTHWORM HOMES. The giant earthworm shown in the video is […]

Worm Composting

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Question: How can I start a worm composting bin? Answer: I recently saw the video below on Meet Me At The Corner.com. After watching the video and reading other information on the same website, I ordered one-thousand red wiggler worms from Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm.  I chose to get the regular size worms instead of […]

Biochemistry:Gelatin

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Question: Why is it ok to used canned pineapple but not fresh pineapple when making a gelatin dessert? Answer: Fresh pineapple has protease, which is a chemical that digests protein. Actually, fresh pineapple contains bromelain, with is a combination of two protein-digesting chemicals.Gelatin is made from the meat protein collagen. The bromelain in fresh pineapples […]

Biochemistry: Protease

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Question: How does fresh pineapple tenderize meat? Answer: There are a chemical in pineapple called enzymes that digests protein in meat. Digest means that large chemicals are broken into smaller chemicals. Bromelain is a protein digesting enzyme found in pineapple. Actinidin is another type of enzyme found in kiwi fruit. These two enzymes are proteases, […]

Biology: Fruit Ripening

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Bananas grow in bunches. Like other fruit, ethylene gas produced by ripening bananas speeds up the ripening process. I read that leaving  bananas attached to their stem  speeds up their ripening process.  Is this really true? How could you find out? This would make a great science project. Just make sure that all the bananas […]

Green Fluorescent Protein

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I seem to be a bit behind in learning about fluorescent animals. Yes, I knew that jellyfish and other sea organisms can glow, but a green fluorescent pig, a potato plant that glows green when it needs water, and red fluorescent kittens!!! Yikes! I would very much like to have plants that glowed when I […]

Biology: Seed Dispersal

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I have painful memories of walking barefoot through what appeared to be a field of soft grass. Some of the grass had produced sharp pointed fruit. While the spikes on some of the fresh burr fruit were not as stiff, they still were able to penetrate the tough skin on my feet. As the fruit […]

Earthworms: Regeneration

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Annelids are worms with rings, such as earthworms. Use a magnifying lens to examine the surface of an earthworm. Notice the individual segments. Adult night crawlers have up to 170 segments while red wigglers have about 95.  On the first segment is the  mouth and on the last segment is the anus. In the video, […]

Chemical Cycling

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Earth’s only inexhaustible energy source comes from the Sun. The supply of chemicals on Earth are fixed, unless you count meteorites from space. The food you eat is made of chemicals–where did they come from? If you trace the source of each chemical in your body, you would end up going in circles. This is […]

Butterflies: Facts

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The butterfly and flower are both exquisite specimens of beauty. With so many morphing cartoons, toys, as well as movie characters, the word metamorphosis should easily roll off the tongue of very young learners. Science terms would so much easier if I’d taken Latin. So many science terms are a smorgasbord of Latin prefixes–roots–and suffixes. […]