Can an engineer be creative? Of course she can and I’ll show you how!
But first, did you know that this week is Engineering Week and it’s goal is to bring engineering ‘to life’ for kids!? As you know, I believe we can encourage our daughter’s innate curiosity and creativity to help her become that future problem solver our world needs. I show you how in my newly published book She Loves Science: A Mother’s Guide to Nurturing the Curiosity, Confidence, and Creativity of Her Daughter. When we encourage a “homegrown” love of science we will increase her confidence so she might consider science and engineering as a future career.
Today, let’s bring engineering to life and amaze her with a little bit of paint and a dash of centrifugal force!
What you’ll need: Washable paint, salad spinner, construction paper, tape
How to do it:
- Cut paper into a heart and tape it to the inside bowl of a salad spinner
- Place small dots of paint at the center of the heart
- Close the lid and let her spin the salad spinner
- Watch what happens to the paint!
What happens: When you spin the salad spinner it applies centrifugal force to the paint to make amazing spin art! Next try what happens when you spin a wet sponge! (Hint: the sponge should dry as the water moves away from it!) Engineers use centrifuges to separate mixtures like water from oil. Oil is like a sponge that has trapped water in it.
In case you want a card to print with this experiment and explanation on it – here ya go!
I hope you have fun this week inspiring your budding engineer! For more resources visit DiscoverE.org and check out my Pinterest board for more fun engineering activities here!
Simple yet impressive. They will want to try other ingredients, like glue, with some glitter of course!