Experiments

Chemistry experiments aren’t necessarily complex activities carried out with expensive equipment. Now you can carry out these hands-on experiments with everyday items found in your house.

The following are all in pdf () format.

Grades 1–3

Amazing Ice
Amazing Powder
Brim to Brim
Broken Pencil?
Dry Paper
Evaporation in Action
Expansion on Freezing
Guessing Game
Hot Sips
How to Make Six-Sided Snowflakes
Ice Fishing
“Magic” Screen
Moved by Marbles
Musical Glasses
Over the Rim
Racing Water Droplets
Rainbow in Your Room
Soapy Stories
Super Snowflakes
Water and Sand
Water Magnifies

Grades 4–6

An Absorbency Experiment
Atoms and Molecules
Baking, Brewing and Body-Building
Bones in Knots
A Breath of Air
Colour Mixing
Crystal Garden
Crystal Streamers
The Disappearing Egg Shell
The Erupting Volcano
Falling Spheres
Green Pennies
Growing Fingernails
Growing Crystals
Hidden Colours
In Suspense
Magnetic Chemistry
Making Rock Candy
Microwaves and Water
Soap and Cells: Making Molecules ‘Stand on their Heads

Middle School

Cellulose Molecules: Left or Right-Handed?
A Chemical Engineer’s Recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies
A Clock Reaction
Electrolysis—Detection of acids and bases with red cabbage juice
Florescence Emission from Tonic Water
Making Sponge Toffee
Natural Product Chemistry: Extracting Pigments
Paper Chromatography
Paper Chromatography 2
Radial Paper Chromatography
Removing Iodine from Iodized Salt
Removing Iron from Cereal
Studying Slime

Acknowledgements:

The grades 1 to 3 experiments are reproduced from Wonderful Water which was originally published in hard copy under the auspices of the Canadian Society for Chemistry in celebration of National Chemistry Week (October 16-22, 1994). It was produced at Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S. The researcher/writer was Nada Haidar, BSc and the coordinator/editor was Mary Anne White, BSc, PhD. Funding for this project came from the Chemical Education Trust Fund of the Chemical Institute of Canada. Reprinting of the booklet in 1999 was funded by Merck Frosst Canada Inc. Click here for a pdf of the full Wonderful Water booklet.

Unless otherwise specified, the grades 4 to 6 experiments are from Discovering Chemistry which was originally published in hard copy under the auspices of the Canadian Society for Chemistry in celebration of National Chemistry Week (October 17-23, 1993). It was produced at Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S. The researcher/writer was Nada Haidar, BSc and the coordinator/editor was Mary Anne White, BSc, PhD. Funding for this project came from the Chemical Education Trust Fund of The Chemical Institute of Canada. Reprinting of the booklet in 1999 was funded by Bayer Inc. Click here for a pdf of the full Discovering Chemistry booklet.

The junior high experiments were reproduced from Exploring Chemistry which was originally published in hard copy under the auspices of the Canadian Society for Chemistry in celebration of National Chemistry Week (October 20-26, 1996). It was produced at the University of Victoria, Victoria, B.C. The researcher/writer was Sarah Baker and the coordinator/editor was Peter Wan, PhD. Funding for this project came from the Chemical Education Trust Fund of the Chemical Institute of Canada, Shell Canada Limited and Rohm and Haas Canada Inc.