Wrapper Rockets and Trombone Straws: Science at Every Meal - Softcover

Sobey, Edwin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0070217459 ISBN 13: 9780070217454

Publisher: McGraw-Hill, 1996

Synopsis

Investigates science through a variety of activities that can be performed while waiting in restaurants, using such items as eating utensils, straws, salt and pepper, napkins, and place mats.

About this title

About the Author

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From the Back Cover

A Smorgasbord of chemistry and physics activities kids can play around mealtime! Ever wish you could give fidgety kids something constructive to do just before mealtime? This ingenious book, filled with entertaining, educational activities, will not only keep them busy, but will teach them about science. In fact, these activities for home, restaurants, school, or anywhere else that food is served, are so captivating, you'll want to join in the fun yourself! Children ages 8 and up will delight in such activities as: Launching straw wrapper rockets; Making drinking glasses sing; Reading tea leaves; competing in fork Olympics. As you and your children have fun with each activity--50 in all--they will be learning the basic concepts of science, such as force and friction; air pressure; gravity; mass, and inertia; sound and vibration; light and optics; thermodynamics; and more. All activities can be done while children wait for meals to be served and require only simple items found on most tables, like straws, napkins, place mats, forks, salt, sugar, drinking glasses and carbonated beverages. Each activity comes with step-by-step instructions, how-to illustrations, helpful hints, and simple explanations of the scientific theory, principle, or law behind it. Intriguing sidebars on science history and invention trivia are sprinkled throughout, making the book a fascinating browse even if it's not mealtime.

Reviews

Grade 5-8. Having youngsters learn basic science while they wait for their pizza, pasta, or burger to arrive is an attractive idea. This collection of experiments uses a variety of materials found in restaurants from straws to beverages to spoons, napkins, water glasses, and salt shakers. The projects cover a wide range of possibilities from creating an optical illusion using a rolled-up place mat, to making exploding straws, to extinguishing a candle with carbon dioxide from soda. Brief histories of restaurants and certain foods such as potato chips, Fig Newtons, and ice cream are provided. Although the format is spacious, the illustrations appear to be computer clip art and the same images are repeated several times throughout the text. Unfortunately, the only safety precaution is buried in the section about candles. In addition, some of the materials needed for the projects are poorly chosen (beer and matchboxes). Vickie Cobb's Science Experiments You Can Eat (HarperCollins, 1984) and Nancy Blakey's Lotions, Potions, and Slime (Tricycle, 1996) are better selections for libraries.?Kathryn Kosiorek, Cuyahoga County Public Library, Brooklyn, OH
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 4^-7. Waiting for food at restaurants can be tedious, but children have always found ways to entertain themselves: hanging spoons on their noses, playing with the bubbles in their soft drinks, and blowing straw wrappers at their siblings. Sobey has good news for parents. Their kids aren't goofing off. They're doing science! Each chapter takes one piece of equipment (straws, napkins, glasses) often found on restaurant tables and uses it in a series of simple experiments and tricks. Written in a lively style and illustrated with cartoon-style art, the book features a more appealing slant and a more readable style than most science activities collections. It ends with information about the history of popular foods, from pizza to potato chips. Reading this engaging book could make dining out with the family almost as much fun as sharing a table with a TV chef, Mr. Wizard, and the Flying Karamazov Brothers. Carolyn Phelan

Edition details

• Publisher: McGraw-Hill
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0070217459
• ISBN 13: 9780070217454
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 139