All about bubbles

Learn about bubbles while having fun in the yard   

Appropriate Age Level
5+ vocabulary might be 8+ 

Materials Needed
bubble wand

container full of bubble solution or variant of it 

Science Learned
hydrophoric - a particle that is water loving

hydrophobic - the ability of a particle to repel water

hydrocarbon- an organic compound consisting entirely of carbon and hydrogen

surface area - the sum of area of the faces

Activity/Experiment 

1. Get out your bubble solution

2. Begin blowing bubbles, have the kids catch the bubbles if they would like.

3. Talk about the science of the bubbles to the child or children you want to teach in something like so:

-> What do you think bubbles are made out of? Bubbles consist of three layers, one is water and two are soap molecule. The soap molecule has two parts to it, a hydrophilic part and a hydrophobic part.  What do you think these two words mean?  Hydrophilic means water loving, while hydrophobic means water repelling or water hating.  The hydrophilic end of the soap molecule faces the water, while the hydrophobic end extends away from the water layer and is made of a hydrocarbon. 

-> What shapes are bubbles usually?  Spheres or ball shaped right?  What is super fascinating is that a bubble will always try to become a sphere.  Why do you think that is?  This is because it minimizes the surface area of the the structure, the bubble.  What is surface area and why would it want to do that? Surface area is the amount of area or surface space that an object has.  A sphere is the smallest for a bubble and so it will always want to be this shape because it  requires the least energy to make or achieve.  Kind of how when you are running after a ball you run in a straight line instead of a loop to get it because you will use less energy to do it right?

4.  Enjoy bubble blowing!
Time Allotted

As long as you want to blow bubbles, the science shouldn't take more than 10 minutes.

References - 

http://chemistry.about.com/od/bubbles/a/bubblescience.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_area