Lam Wen Hong (16) 2i1

Science For Fun This term, I attended the Science For Fun, held on a Thursday this term. I got to know about it over the SMB. Also, I had heard much positive feedback from my friends. They said they found it very interesting as they could play with the things around. Thus, me and a group of my friends signed up together for the Science For Fun on the Thursday slot. At the lab, there were 9 different stations: namely Moving Air, Human Battery, Eye Model, Tornado Tube, Top Secret, Pineapple Gelatin, Lava Lamp, Blue Bottle and Adsorption of Heavy Metal Ions. These stations were all very fun and exciting. However, three of the stations enticed me the most, as I was able to play about with chemicals and see clearly for myself the chemical changes. These three stations are Pineapple Gelatin, Adsorption of Heavy Metal Ions, and Blue Bottle. At Pineapple Gelatin, which was the first station we went to, we followed the procedure given and set up all three test tubes. However, we could not find any changes or any differences between the three test tubes. At a loss, we asked the man-in-charge for help. He prompted us to try and pour it out. To our amazement, the gelatin for the canned pineapple juice and the water was solidified, whereas the gelatin for the fresh pineapple juice remained liquid. When I realized that, I understood. The gelatin was heated at first to keep it aqueous; when it was removed and put in the test tubes which were then put into the ice cube test tube holder, it changed back to solid form. However, for the fresh pineapple, it still contained protese, which dissolved the gelatin. Thus there was no more gelatin in the fresh pineapple juice mixture, and the solution was still liquid when we tried to pour it out. The next station was Blue Bottle. When we mixed the chemicals together, it changed from blue to colourless. When we shook the bottle, it changed back to blue again, and later turned back to colourless. We were amazed and recorded our findings in the experiment. However, there was one more question; if we filled it to the top of the bottle, would there be any reaction? We then found a bottle of the solution that was filled to the brim, and then we compared it to the one we had. We found that, no matter how hard we shook for the full bottle, the colour would not change. The assistant told us that the reaction lay in the air in the bottle; without the air, there would be no chemical reaction; thus there was no change observed in the full bottle. The other station left would be Adsorption of Heavy Metal Ions. This was the coolest station of all, it was the most interesting and required an assistant to help out. When I went there, I saw an interesting black apparatus. I found that this apparatus was used in finding out the amount of copper ions in the solution that was put into the apparatus. I followed the procedure accordingly. However, due to time constrains, I was not able to do the full experiment and I was given a bottle of the end result that had been prepared already. The result showed that orange peels absorb copper ions.

Lam Wen Hong (16) 2i1

Overall, I feel that this Science for fun program has been very interesting. I hope that there will be another such program next year too.