Soap and Germ Science

Here is a simple, powerful, and classic experiment to show your kids why we wash our hands with soap especially now that we are trying to avoid contracting the coronavirus.

What you need: A bowl of water, dish soap, oil, and pepper

How you do it:

• Explain that our hands have small amounts of oil on them and this oil is what holds the dirt and germs to our hands throughout the day.

• Add pepper to the bowl of water and explain that this is how germs remain on the water when we only rinse our hands with water.
• Touch your finger tip in the oil and then into the floating pepper – the pepper is caked onto your fingertip! Ugh! 😱

• Now add a drop of soap to another finger and see what happens! The germs are repelled! 🙌

Of course all three of mine had to try and were amazed! 👏👏👏