Chemistry in the Community online textbook

I came across a discussion on a homeschool email list of the American Chemical Society's high school textbook Chemistry in the Community (ChemCom) and thought I'd throw it out there for anyone interested. The textbook is muy expensive, but there's a companion website with supplementary student material, including animations, that might be useful even if you don't use the text.

And just a reminder that ACS hold Chemistry Week activities every October, and their website has a page of educational content, including simple experiments for kids.

MAKE's Chemistry Gift Guide

At the MAKE magazine website they have a well-rounded if nostalgic collection of chemistry books and sets for "the next generation of chemists." A lot of glassware if you're into that sort of thing; I was very happy using plastic cups and spoons. Worth browsing.

(And if you want to send my family a little holiday cheer, and maybe save a little money, come back here and buy the items you see at MAKE from my Amazon store. Those little kickbacks I get when you click through from my websites are appreciated!)

The Thames and Konos Chem C3000 chemistry set -- probably the best you can buy at the moment, though still less complete than chemistry sets of the 50s and 60s -- is $50 cheaper at Amazon.

Carbon Snakes

Here's a project I neglected to post last spring. We weren't totally satisfied with the results, so it never made it into the blog. Just this week, however, I found something fun to add, so I'm putting it up now for the record.

This experiment, like so many we did last year, came from Anne Marie Helmenstine at About.com's Chemistry page. Here's what we did:

Baking Soda and Sugar Carbon Snake

Sand

lighter fluid

baking soda

powdered sugar

1. Mix 4 tsp sugar and 1 tsp baking soda.
2. Make a mound with the sand. Push a depression into the middle of the sand.
3. Pour the alcohol or other fuel into the sand to wet it.
4. Pour the sugar and soda mixture into the depression.
5. Ignite the mound, using a lighter or match.

Anne Marie goes on to write:

At first, you'll get a flame and some small scattered blackened balls. Once the reaction gets going, the carbon dioxide will puff up the carbonate into the continuously extruded 'snake'. Actually, you don't even need the sand. I tried this project using baking soda and sugar in a metal mixing bowl, added the fuel, and lit the mixture. It worked fine. The old firework snakes had a distinct smell. These have a smell too... burnt marshmallows! If you use pure ethanol, sugar, and baking soda, then there is nothing toxic about this project. One caution: Don't add fuel to the burning snake, since you risk igniting the alcohol stream.

We got the puff balls, but the snakes were kind of stumpy. If you watch the video, you can see that the level of anxiety over this experiment overshadowed the excitement as well:

Here's how Anne Marie explains the reaction:

How Black Snakes Work
The sugar and baking soda snake proceeds according to the following chemical reactions, where sodium bicarbonate breaks down into sodium carbonate, water vapor, and carbon dioxide gas while burning the sugar in oxygen produces water vapor and carbon dioxide gas. The snake is carbonate with black carbon particles:

2 NaHCO₃ -> Na₂CO₃ + H₂O + CO₂
C₂H₅OH + 3 O₂ -> 2 CO₂ + 3 H₂O

Kitchen Biology

Many of the chemistry projects that we never got to last year lend themselves to investigation under the heading of biology as well. Although I haven't seen the term "Kitchen Biology" used as often as "Kitchen Chemistry," I've got plans to brew (root) beer (with yeast), make yogurt (with bacteria), and grow bioluminescent bacteria on old fish. Good times ahead!

Be sure to visit my Home Biology blog.

Wood Sorrel

We've been cataloging plant and animal species in our backyard for biology studies and discovered that wood sorrel has a sour, lemony taste to the leaves because of oxalic acid. This acid is also present in many other fruits and vegetables; in fact, according to Wikipedia, if you eat a slice of rhubarb pie with a glass of milk, it will cause some of the calcium to precipitate out, creating tiny grains you can feel on your tongue!

Moving on to Home Biology

The summer has gone and I am starting to add content to this year's science blog, Home Biology. Come join me!

Periodic Table of Videos

Still hoping to do a few outdoor experiments before the summer's over but work -- and unending days of rain -- are making it difficult. Maybe this week...

In the meantime, fellow homeschooling author and blogger Kris Bordessa has post on the Periodic Table of Videos from the University of Nottingham in England. The short videos are hosted by Martyn Poliakoff, research professor and pioneer in the field of green chemistry -- with the best Mad Scientist hair I've seen in a long time!

Kris says her 15 year old spent an hour poring through this site. Check it out!