Science Week 2023

British Science Week is a ten-day celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths - featuring fascinating, entertaining and engaging events and activities across the UK for people of all ages.

British Science Week provides a platform to stimulate and support teachers, STEM professionals, science communicators and the general public to produce and participate in STEM events and activities.

British Science Week 2023 will take place 10 - 19 March 2023. There will be some incredible projects and activities planned, look out for the announcement of the 2022 theme later in the year! 

Find out more at our dedicated microsite: www.britishscienceweek.org.

Here at Little Trekkers we have have some fun science experiments you could give a go at home this week. 

Eco Slime-

What you need:

• Half a cup of cornflour
• Cup of water
• Natural food colouring
• Old plastic container (with a lid to store your slime)
• Spoon and knife for mixing
• Wipes (very handy to have these nearby)

Eco Slime Method:

• Prepare an area that you don’t mind getting messy.
• Measure out half a cup of cornflour. Tip this into your plastic container.
• Add some food colouring to your cup of water, mix.
• Add about 10 spoons of the coloured water to the cornflour. Give it a good mix using a knife or spoon.
• Your mixture should now be rather crumbly. Slowly add some more coloured water to the mixture, one spoonful at a time, until you reach a gooey slimy consistency. You need to mix it after each spoon of water is added. If the slime is too watery, just add a little more cornflour. If it becomes too dry or crumbly, add a splash more water.

Eco Slime Play ideas:

• Add things into your slime like, Scented lotions, Fragrance oils, Glitter, Sparkly stars, Coloured sprinkles, Sand, Water beads.
• Make Your Name with Slime
• Form Numbers with Slime
• Make Shapes with Slime
• Blow Slime Bubbles
• Design a Slime Snow Person
• Experiment with Mixing Colours

Lava Lamp- 

What you need:

• A clear container (preferably with a lid but can be done without one)
• Water
• Oil (vegetable, baby, etc.)
• Food Colouring
• Alka-Seltzer Tablet or alternative (Mixture of baking soda and citric acid or Baking Soda and Vinegar)

Lava Lamp- Method:

• Fill the container 1/3 of the way with water
• Fill the rest container most of the way with vegetable oil. The oil will stay on top of the water
• Add a few drops of food colouring; your choice of colour. The food colouring is water-based, so it will also sink and colour the water.
• Break an Alka-Seltzer tablet into a few small pieces and drop them in the flask one at a time.
• oIf using baking soda and citric acid, mix 1 spoon of baking soda with 2 spoons of citric acid and then pour the mixture slowly into the container
• If using baking soda and vinegar, mix two heaping spoons' of baking soda with your water before adding it to the container. Then proceed to add the oil and colouring as above. Next, slowly pour vinegar into container.
• Watch your lava lamp erupt into activity! As the reaction slows down, simply add more Alka-Seltzer.

If you used a lidded container, make sure to leave the lid off while the reaction is taking place. Once all the Alka-Seltzer is dissolved, you can close the lid and keep your lava lamp to reactivate later (add more Alka-Seltzer whenever you want to reactivate the bubbles)

Be sure to properly dispose of your lava lamp as you would any cooking oil.

Skittle Rainbow-

What you need:

• A bag of skittles
• A plate
• Warm water

Skittles Rainbow Method:

• Arrange the Skittles in a circle on the outer curve of the plate.
• Carefully pour warm water into the middle of the plate so that the sweets are half submerged.
• Watch as the colour of the sweets slowly starts to creep towards the middle of the plate, making an amazing rainbow effect! 

An optional physical reward for your Little Trekkers when they complete our science activities or just to reward them for loving and enjoying Science, this iron on patch is a great collectible patch to encourage your Little Trekkers love of learning.

 Shop here.