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At home science experiments with Jesse Ritka

Posted at 9:33 PM, Apr 09, 2020
and last updated 2020-05-26 13:50:03-04

Meteorologist Jesse Ritka and her boys have some more fun science experiments for you to try at home with your kids.

Tornado in a Bottle

Tornado in a bottle

“We are getting closer to severe weather season so today we are going to make a tornado in a bottle! This is pretty easy you just take an old plastic bottle and you fill it about two thirds to three quarters of the way full with water we add a few little drops of dish soap. One for you, and some for you. And we're not a glitter household but this would be a good time to put some glitter in, but since we don't have glitter we've got some monopoly houses and creatures. Yeah, put those in there put those on there so you've got some little sea creatures so yours is going to be a waterspout. Put your houses in. There we go. We put the cap on. And we turn it upside down. And we spin it around and you make your vortex ooo look at those cows. What do you think? Is that a tornado? That is moving around because of centripetal force, a vortex right buddy? You try! Spin it around! I wanna, you do it!

Dancing Gummy Worms

Dancing Gummy Worms

Here's another fun experiment you can do with the kids. We’ve got some gummy worms here that I soaked into a mixture of about a tablespoon of baking soda and water, let them sit in there for 15 minutes. We're going to make these gummy worms dance so let's see your guys's dance moves. Nice dance move shake your booty Asher. Good job. All right. So now, I love me a baking soda and vinegar reaction but here's what you do, you just find the fish out those gummy worms, Ash, can you drop this in there? We've got a glass full of vinegar. And now we're going to watch him dance! Go ahead put this one of our two cups. We're going to do another one. All right, so the reaction between the baking soda and the vinegar is putting these little gas bubbles around the gummy worms, which you're not supposed to eat these ones but we ones that were not in the baking soda. I ate them up! Was that was good? Mmmhmm! Let’s dance some more!

Dancing Dry Erase

Dancing Dry Erase

Alright I’m here with Jaxton and Asher and today we are going to make some fun little moving wiggly people and boats. All you need is a glass pen pan, and a dry erase markers and you draw your little figures: go ahead start drawing on there who draw your figures on the glass pans. So draw yours Asher, I've got a boat on yours. You try yours now. There you go. Now try to draw it all in one continuous line you want to make sure it's all connected. Go ahead draw! Let your dry erase markers dry and then you take the water you tilt the pan. And you very slowly fill it up and start to tilt the pan a little bit, you can see that the dry erase marker is starting to lift up. So this is why you want to keep it one continuous line. Is that cool, cool. Oh man, you can make it move and dance around to the water, touch the water. Since all this left is the pigments. And now you’ve got your boat on your finger.

Snow Dough

This one is a fun experiment for all those snow lovers out there. To make a snowman, all you need is a little corn starch. So let's put that into a pie pan for you, and a little cornstarch in the pie pan for you. Oh yeah give you a lot, then you just take some shaving cream and you spray it in here.All right now boys. This is where we get to get messy start mixing it together. So now the reaction between the shaving cream and the corn starch actually makes it kind of feel cold. Eventually it'll get to the consistency where you can kind of make snowman or you can make little molds. But you have to knead it for a little while. So after enough kneading you can make snowballs, and even, what's that? A snowman. Just in case you're missing the snow. We are missing the eyes and the nose, we should figured that out so if you want you can use little tiny chocolate chips to add a face. What should we do for a nose. A Skittle! All right, well you are working so you know you get paid in treats."

ritka snow

Making Clouds

ritka clouds

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