175 minutes for chemistry

Michael Reynolds spent his Time4Chem at his sons nursery in Jesmond, Newcastle, recruiting them as their own research group and getting them involved with science.

On 12 December I went to my sons nursery to do some chemistry-based activities with his playgroup the Dolphin group, aged 2832 months. For one hour they became the Dolphin Research Group.

First I gave each of the children and staff a sticker with the research group logo that they could put on their shirts. I then had some disposable lab coats, which most of the kids wore at some point the stickers and dressing up was a great way to get them excited.

We then did a few experiments that I led with the help of the nursery staff. The first (and what seemed to work best) was playing with red cabbage-dyed paper and squirting it with pipettes of lemon juice or baking soda. The fun happened when they switched solutions and saw it fizzing on the paper. I used filter paper and standard A4 printer paper and the results went home in the form of a chemis-tree bauble.

Picture: Michael Reynolds

Read the original:
Inspiring toddlers with chemistry - Royal Society of Chemistry