Summary Blow into a bottle with a piece of paper in its mouth. Surprise when the paper comes towards you. Science content Chemistry: Atoms, Molecules (3-7) Science competencies (+ questioning + manipulation + others that are in every activity) Questioning/predicting: predicting (1 up), hypothesizing (7) Processing/analyzing: comparing observations with predictions (1 up) Lessons activity is in Weather - what causes it? Materials recycled drink bottle with a wide mouth small piece of paper, that when crumpled into a ball, takes up half the mouth of the bottle Procedure Crumple the paper into a ball. Place it in the mouth of the bottle. Blow into the mouth of the bottle. What happens? The paper will usually shoot out of the bottle towards you! If it does not, check that the paper ball does not take up more than half of the diameter of the bottle opening. Why? When you blow into the bottle, you add air to it, which increases the pressure inside. The higher pressure air in the bottle will move towards the lower pressure air outside the bottle. In flowing out of the bottle it pushes the paper out. Notes Some students blow gently enough, or at the right angle, so that the paper goes into the bottle. Set up with the bottle flat on the desk. Try replacing paper with a small pompom or other item (is it better to be heavier or lighter?) Reframe as a challenge to make paper fly back at you as fast as possible. (Even when I did this, some students could not get it to move back at them - try other changes above.) Grades taught Gr 1 Gr 2 Gr 4 Gr 5 Gr 6 Gr 7
