Rosemary Davidson - Glorious Things To Do

Illustrations by Natacha Ledwidge

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First published 2008
1

Copyright Rosemary Davidson,
2008

All Illustrations by Natacha
Ledwidge unless otherwise
stated below. Copyright
Natacha Ledwidge, 2008

Silhouettes and other illustrations
by Dover Books used on the
following pages: 11, 12, 13, 14,
15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24,
36, 39,80 and 157

Illustrations copyright Kirsty
Gordon, 2008. Images used on
the following pages: 37, 127

Uncredited illustrations used on
the following pages: 34, 35, 65,
66, 67, 68(bottom right), 69, 73,
75, 76, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 108, 109,
110, 111, 112, 113, 124, 125, 126, 138,
146, 147, 150, 151 and 152

The moral right of the author and
illustrators has been asserted

All rights reserved

Without limiting the rights
under copyright reserved above,
no part of this publication may
be reproduced, stored in or
introduced into a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in
any form or by any means
(electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or
otherwise), without the prior
written permission of both
the copyright owner and the
above publisher of this book

978-0-14-191709-2

There are those days when there just dont seem to be enough hours to fit in all the things you have to do homework, room tidying, dish-washing never mind all the things youd like to do creative schemes and projects, playing with friends or simply reading a book. Then there are those other days, long summer holiday days, when the hours seem to stretch empty and endlessly ahead, boredom looms and, listless and irritable, you cannot think of a single idea or thing that youd like to do.

Glorious Things To Do is the book for just those days. Packed with brilliantly creative and constructive things to make, recipes and scientific experiments; there are ideas for things to do indoors and outdoors, things to do on your own, or with friends and family, and things for rainy days and for fine weather. And hopefully, some of these things will be so successful that youll want to do them and make them, over and over again&

What better way to start a book of things to do than with a BANG. Here are two very safe, but very effective and dramatic, scientific explosions which you can do at home. They are pretty messy, so it would be best to do your experimenting outdoors .

* 1 litre bottle diet cola

* thick paper or flexible card

* 5 Mento mints

This is very messy, so make sure you do this where there is lots of open space for the cola to spray.

Open the bottle and put a small square of paper over the mouth. Make a tube out of another piece of paper just larger than the diameter of the mints. Put the tube on top of the square of paper directly over the bottle opening and drop in all the mints. Quickly slide the paper out from under the tube so the mints drop into the bottle. Almost immediately you will have a dramatic cola volcano. Any liquid left in the bottle (probably not a lot) will be delicately flavoured with mint.

What has happened? Cola is full of carbon dioxide gas. The water molecules in the cola attract each other and form a tight mesh (called surface tension) round each bubble of carbon dioxide. When the mints are dropped into the cola, the gelatine and gum arabic in them break this surface tension allowing the gas to escape. The surface of the mints is covered in thousands of small pits which are ideal places for the gas bubbles to form. As the mints sink to the bottom all this carbon dioxide pushes the liquid up out of the bottle in an absolutely spectacular way. The highest cola volcano has been recorded at 10 metres! Diet cola is used because it contains less sugar molecules than regular cola; sugar helps hold on to the carbon dioxide and results in a weaker reaction.

* 35mm plastic film canister with lid

* Alka Seltzer tablet

* tap water

Pop an Alka Seltzer tablet into the film canister and fill it about 2/3 full with slightly warm tap water, quickly and firmly close the lid, put the canister on the table, lid end down, stand well back and wait for the dramatic results!

* If you use more than one tablet per canister, what do you think will happen?

* What happens if you vary the volume of water? Try it, and find out.

What has happened? As the tablet dissolves, carbon dioxide gas is formed. The gas pressure in the canister builds up and eventually forces the lid of with a pleasing pop, sending the canister into the air.

Wherever you are, youll have lyrical birdsong to greet the new day if you just listen out for it, and with practice youll be able to spot and identify the birds living in your area effortlessly .