Can You Blow a Square Bubble?

   2005-03-08      experiment

We used this experiment as the class science fair project, and it worked out quite well. At the start of the class, I asked who had experience blowing bubbles. All but one of the first graders raised their hands. Then I told them that usually we blow bubbles using something like this (and showed them a typical bubble blower, a stick with a circle on the end), and then asked them about the shape of the bubble. They knew the words “round” and “circle,” and I introduced the word “sphere.”

Materials:
- bubble mix in containers big enough for dipping the milk cartoon
- for each child
- milk carton (with the flat end cut off)
- straw
- plastic cup

Each child had a milk carton in front of them and we talked about the shape of the bottom of it. We handed out a worksheet, where the first question (their hypothesis) was:
Do you think you can blow a square bubble?
I asked them to think about this (not shout it out) and write down what they thought – just under half the class thought they could blow a squaew bubble. Then we let them experiment. This was loads of fun. No one seemed disappointed when their bubbles came out round. You can blow great big bubbles with milk cartons!

ideas:where
- book: 365 Simple Science Experiments with Everyday Materials
- more about bubbles