The Home Scientist Try-it is part of the “It's Your World - Change It!” badge set introduced in 2011 earned to Girl Scout Brownies.
Step 1: Be a kitchen chemist []
- Make your own ice cream. Our scouts really loved making their own ice cream! The Girl Scout website now has a recipe for “Kick the Can” Ice Cream or you can make ice cream in a bag.. Ask the girls why you need salt to make ice cream? Why doesn't it make the ice cream melt, like it does snow? Answer.
- Make your own red cabbage pH tester then test different kitchen chemicals (baking soda, lemon juice, vinegar, etc.) with it. My daughter had fun doing this, then adding antacids like crushed Tums or Alka Seltzer to see how the colors changed again.
- Make your own pH paper. This could be done at the same time as the one above, using some of the cabbage water. If you want to do the painting part, girls would need to make it at one meeting, let the paper dry, and paint it at a different meeting.
Step 2: Create static electricity []
The activities in the binder were fast, so we did all three.
Step 3: Dive into density []
- 9-layer density test (see picture above). Our Brownies loved this! They liked seeing everything stay in its own layer and were trying to find other objects around the room to add to it to see what would happen! We left out the lamp oil (flamable), but used all of the other items. You only need about 1/4 cup (or less) of each of the liquids:
- Sugar water density rainbow