When you think of bubbles, what do you think of?
How about cubic bubbles? Do you think of economic bubbles or liquid or gaseous bubbles? How about glow in the dark bubbles?
In STEM Scouts Lab 605, sponsored by the Burke Centre Conservancy, we just finished a module called Bubbleology.
As the fanciful words suggests, STEM Scouts studied all aspects of bubbles, and experimented with manipulating the composition of their bubbles by going thru the engineering design process.
An underlying goal in each module is to introduce the youth to STEM careers. In this module, we learned about materials engineers are people who use their understanding of different materials (such as metals, plastics or wood) to make things that solve problems. STEM Scouts ‘stepped in to the shoes’ of materials engineers by experimenting with many different materials that can be used to make bubble wands and solution. We explored the chemistry behind the bubbles!
Scouts were guided
thru experiments to design glow-in-the dark bubbles, and then given the challenge to demonstrate their own innovative bubble designs. Pictured here are Olivia’s creation of a hole in a bubble and David demonstrating his cubic bubble!
