Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Making plasma: a homeschooling science experiment gone right


End of last week, my dear Husband, who was a math and science whiz during his high school years with too much time on his hands, decided to share some of his “cool” experience with the boys. The experiment was to involve fire and our microwave, and to produce plasma - the “coolest ever!”light show in our microwave. Now, I’m already a little careful with microwaves in general. The boys forget about the no metal rule sometimes and leaves spoons in their tea cups. This freaks me out. Add the fact that my husband was going to use my new pyrex oven dish as well, and you can guess that I wasn’t very happy.

Still, ignoring my protests and words of warning, the male population of our family (everyone else but me) proceeded to light a fire using matches and candles, put the fire in my oven dish, stuck it in the microwave and turned it on. Oh boy did that look cool! It was like an alien space invasion. Plasma, looking like a blue crazy light, whipping around the microwave. “AAAAAWESOME!!” the boys yelled in unison.

Science experiment [I have to add: this time] = a few dollars, getting the boys hooked on science = priceless.

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