Item# 2225
For sophisticated
children ages 4+
and the adults
in their lives
Be the Star of Your Science Laboratory
Introduction
Children are natural scientists! They are curious about the world around them. Science is about exploring and discovering
new things. It is important to encourage children of all ages to ask questions, observe the environment, and investigate it.
Adults inspire children to be explorers when they create “what if” stories. Challenge children to come up with their own
solutions to help them build creative thinking and problem solving skills, while having fun.
With Test Tube Explorers, adults and children put scientific processes to use as they explore color, the science of soda
bottles, and more! Children start thinking of themselves as scientists as they do science activities with an adult.
General Rules for Lab Safety
All scientists must be safe. Here are important basic lab safety rules.
• A responsible adult should always do science experiments with children.
• Do not smell or taste your experiments. Do not to eat or drink around any chemical.
• Do not touch chemicals unless instructions say they are safe.
• If a chemical gets into anyone’s eyes, rinse immediately with water. Remove contact lenses (if any).
Flush eyes with water for 15 minutes.
• If a chemical is swallowed, rinse mouth. Drink a glassful of water or milk but do not induce vomiting.
• If a chemical gets on skin, flush the skin thoroughly with water.
• In all cases, if an emergency occurs, or you have a serious concern, get immediate medical attention.
• Always READ ALL LABELS on kit materials!
Keep in mind, with Test Tube Explorers, you will also use:
• Cooking Oil – This is not expected to be a health hazard, but should be handled carefully.
• Fizzers -­Read package labeling for use and cautions. This is not expected to be a health hazard,
but should be handled carefully.
The Scientific Method
As you do these activities with your children, you will use steps in the scientific method.
Remember, the scientific method is a process that has the following steps:
1. Make observations,
2. Do some research,
3. Come up with a hypothesis,
4. Test (or experiment with) the hypothesis
5. Form a conclusion.
6. Answer the questions on Young Scientist Card #3
7. Do the activity on Young Scientist Card #4
Science Adventurers Prepare!
What is in this kit?
• 3 2 oz (60 mL) Large Test Tubes with Lids (Baby Soda Bottles)
• 1 3-hole Test Tube Holder (Baby Soda Bottle Rack)
• 12 Fizzers™ Coloring Tablets
• 4 Instruction Cards
• 1 g (.035 oz) Styrofoam Beads
• 1 Instruction Booklet
What you need to provide:
• Crayons
• Light source (sunny window or light)
• Paper towels
• Rubber band
• Different sized lids (shampoo, salad dressing, etc., and a 2-­liter bottle cap)
• Water
• Vegetable oil
Adventures with Baby Soda Bottles!
They look like plastic test tubes, but are much, much more! The Baby Soda Bottles provide a safe way to encourage
questions as adults explore science with children. Adults can talk with children about important topics like the environment,
how to act like a scientist, see and mix color -­- ­and more. The fun of science and the scientific process comes to life when
children and adults share these activities.
Experiment: Baby Soda Bottle Discoveries
This adventure lets young scientist(s) discover what the Baby Soda Bottle really is, while using the
scientific method.
What you need:
• Young Scientist Cards #1 and #2
• Baby Soda Bottle
• Different sized bottle caps (make sure to include a 2-­liter soda bottle cap)
Steps to follow:
1. Assemble the research team (you and your children!)
2. Make observations about your Baby Soda Bottle. As you examine, observe and talk about the Baby Soda Bottle.
You are doing research. (Steps 1 & 2 of the Scientific Process) Ask children questions such as:
What is the Baby Soda Bottle made of? What is so special about it? Why does the tube have those grooves on top?
Where else might you see this? What else could it be?
3. Talk about what you have discussed. Predict what the Baby Soda Bottle really is. (Step 3– making a hypothesis)
4. Try to find out what bottle caps fit. (Step 4 – Test the hypothesis) Continue trying until you find the right one.
(You may want to limit choices – caps from ketchup, jelly, etc.; make sure you have a 2-­liter soda bottle cap.)
5. Which caps did not fit? Which fit? (2-­liter bottle cap) Why? Draw conclusions from your data.
The Baby Soda Bottle is really a 2-­liter bottle! (Step 5 – Drawing a conclusion)
The science behind it:
The Baby Soda Bottle is actually a tiny 2-­liter soda bottle! (It’s the plastic in an early state.) At the plant where soda bottles
are manufactured, the plastic tube is placed into a special mold shaped like a soda bottle. Then, really hot air is blown into
the tube. This makes the plastic stretch like a balloon. The tube grows to about 40-­times its original size. When the plastic
cools, the mold is opened and the 2-­liter bottle falls out, ready to be filled with soda or water or juice.
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Young Scientists on a Quest
Getting started:
What you will need:
• “How many questions can you ask?” card #3
• Paper & writing instruments (or a recording device) &
• Lots of questions!!
There are many different kinds of scientists. But they all have a lot in common. All scientists ask lots of questions and most
use test tubes to collect and study cool things. A biologist may collect river samples in test tubes to find out how many life
forms they can find. A chemist uses test tubes to study how chemicals mix. Soil scientists put dirt, leaves, or even bugs into
test tubes to observe the activity.
What questions do the children have? What are some of your questions? Record the questions and talk about them.
Setting up a Science Lab
What you’ll need:
• Young Scientist Cards #5 and #6
• Baby Soda Bottle rack
Share the card. Talk with children about how to use the materials. Explain why it’s important to be safe and take good care
of equipment and materials. Use the Baby Soda Bottle holder to help organize your materials. Take an inventory of your
supplies. Talk to your children about what each item does. This gives children a good reason to talk about science, learn
new words, and practice observation skills!
Observation: Bubbling Colors
What you will need:
• Baby Soda Bottles
• Baby Soda Bottle rack
• Fizzers™ Coloring Tablets
Steps to follow:
1. Fill three Baby Soda Bottles almost to the top with water. Put them in the tube holder.
2. Open the package of Fizzers. Get a blue, yellow, and red tablet. (The red looks purple.)
3. Take one test tube from the holder. Drop the blue tablet in it. Screw on the lid.
4. Observe what happens. Repeat the process with the red and yellow tablets.
5. Keep observing what happens!
The science secret behind it:
The Fizzers are made out of a special kind of dry food coloring. (Do not worry; it will not stain your hands!).
When the colored tablet and water mix, the liquid fizzes. It is caused by a chemical reaction between the water and the
colored tablet. It produces carbon dioxide bubbles.
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The scientific process continues: Mixing Colors with Your Eyes
What you need:
• Young Scientist Card #7
• Your color-­filled Baby Soda Bottles
Steps to follow:
1. Have your child hold each Baby Soda Bottle up to their eyes near the light one, at a time.
Ask them to tell you about the colors they see.
2. Show children how to cross the yellow and blue tubes in front of their eyes. Look through the center of both bottles
(where they intersect) at the same time. Ask children what colors they see when they look through blue
and yellow at the same time?
3. What colors do you see when you cross the red and blue tubes? Red and yellow?
What other colors can they make with two tubes? (For example: yellow + blue =? Blue + red =? Red + yellow =?)
4. Ask children to use crayons or markers to record and share their discoveries.
The science behind it:
Light appears to change color as it passes through two tubes at once. This causes your eyes to see new colors like green,
purple, and orange. Notice that your eyes look bigger than normal because light bends as it passes from one kind of
material into another: from air into plastic into water into plastic and out again.
Continue exploring using the scientific process: Test Tube Twist
What you will need:
• A rubber band
• Your color-­filled Baby Soda Bottles
Steps to follow:
• Stretch a rubber band around the middle of all three Baby Soda Bottles.
It should make them come together where the rubber band holds them in place.
• Ask the children to hold the tubes up to their eyes then look at the light. What colors do they see?
Are they the same colors you recorded?
• Slowly twist the tubes and watch what happens! The color changes right before your eyes!
Even more with the scientific process: Test Tube Mix-­Up
What you will need:
• Young Scientist card #8
• Your color-­filled Baby Soda Bottles
• One clean, empty Baby Soda Bottle
Steps to follow:
1. Ask your children to choose two colors to mix. Twist off the caps on both tubes.
2. Based on what you have done with combining colors, ask your children to predict what will happen when the two colors
are combined. Pour the same amount of each colored liquid into a clean, empty test tube.
Swirl it around. What color does it make?
(Remember, it is OK to have a different color than predicted.)
3. Clean out your test tube and pick two different colors to mix. Be sure to make another prediction!
4. What happens when they mix all three original colors?
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The scientific process in action again: Topsy Turvey
What you will need:
• Bag of Styrofoam beads
• Clean, dry Baby Soda Bottles with caps
Steps to follow:
1. Pour the bag of Styrofoam beads into a clean, dry, Baby Soda Bottle. Screw on a cap.
2. Ask the children to shake the test tube back and forth vigorously for about fifteen seconds.
(To time this, slowly say the word ‘hippopotamus’ 15 times.)
3. After 15 seconds, look at the Styrofoam beads sticking to the inside of the tube. What is happening?
Are they sticking to the side of the tube?
4. Open the test tube and drop in any colored tablet. Fill the test tube with water until the Styrofoam beads
start to creep over the top. Quickly put on the cap.
5. Turn the test tube over, upside down, end-­to end – or any other way you want. What happens to the Styrofoam beads?
Do they float or sink? Why?
The science behind it:
When you shake the tube vigorously, the Styrofoam beads rub against each other and produce static electricity. The beads
are attracted to the sides of the tube much the same way your hair is attracted to a balloon or comb when you rub it.
When you add a colored tablet to the tube, the Styrofoam beads float because tiny air bubbles are trapped inside the
Styrofoam and make the beads lighter than water.
Science in action: Bubbling Blob
What you will need:
• A clean Baby Soda Bottle
• Cooking oil (such as vegetable oil)
• Fizzers™ Coloring Tablet
Steps to follow:
1. Pour cooking oil into a Baby Soda Bottle until it is about 3/4-full. Finish filling the Baby Soda Bottle with water.
Talk about the oil and water in the bottle. What do you observe?
2. Pick out a blue or red Fizzer and drop it into the tube with the oil and water. DO NOT PUT THE CAP ON, JUST YET!
Watch what happens to the bubbling water on the bottom.
3. After the lava blobs have stopped bubbling up, fill the rest of the tube with oil until it is almost overflowing.
4. Put the cap on the tube tightly. Wipe off excess oil with a paper towel.
5. Tip the test tube back and forth and watch what happens. The tiny droplets of liquid join together to make
one big lava-­like blob! (It may take a few minutes for this to happen.)
6. Notice that the blob sinks to the bottom of the tube. Why?
The science behind it:
The blob sinks to the bottom because water is heavier than oil, just like water was heavier than the Styrofoam beads. This
is the same principle that when a ship carrying oil spills it in the ocean by mistake, the oil will float on top of the water. It
makes it very dangerous to birds, fish, and people.
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Experiments to Do With Your Test Tubes
A Discovery Tube
Steps to follow:
1. Collect all sorts of small things on a nature walk. Gather soil samples, leaves, seeds, or insects.
Liquid Laboratory
Steps to follow:
1. Collect samples of water from ponds and streams.
2. Take a look at water samples using a microscope or magnifying glass.
Roots with a View
Steps to follow:
1. Observe how plant roots grow and try to find food.
2. Place soil and a few seeds (such as grass or radish seeds) in a test tube.
3. Water it, wait, and watch.
Time Capsule
Steps to follow:
1. Put a secret message or special information in a test tube.
2. Put it away to open or share in the future.
Make a Twister
Steps to follow:
1. Fill a test tube about 3/4 full of water.
2. Add a few drops of liquid soap.
3. Seal the test tube with a cap. Twist it quickly.
4. The swirling motion of the soap and water make a twisting, turning vortex – like a tiny tornado.
Sands of Time
Steps to follow:
1. Put layers of different colored sand to make a rainbow.
The Marble Challenge
Steps to follow:
1. Fill a test tube about 3/4-full with sand.
2. Put a marble on top of the sand. Seal the tube.
3. Without opening it, try to move the marble from the top to the bottom as quickly as possible.
4. Challenge friends and family to try it.
Flower Holder
Steps to follow:
1. Put water and a flower in a test tube.
2. Put the test tube in the holder.
Rain Gauge
Steps to follow:
1. Use a ruler and a pen with permanent ink to mark 1/2-­inch increments (like on a ruler) on a test tube.
2. Put the tube in open area outside.
3. Collect and measure rainfall.
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Message in a Bottle
Steps to follow:
1. Put a message in a test tube.
2. Seal it with a cap to keep water out.
3. Float the message across a pool to a friend.
Pop Goes the Weasel
Steps to follow:
1. Find a cork that tightly fits the test tube.
2. Fill the test tube about 1/4 full with water.
3. Divide an Alka-­Seltzer tablet into four pieces.
4. Put one piece into the tube.
5. Put the cork in quickly; point the end with the cork away from anything living (or fragile).
6. The cork pops out!
Travel Containers
Steps to follow:
1. Use test tubes as travel containers.
2. Fill them with shampoo, hair conditioner, hand lotion, sunscreen or anything needed.
Glitter Wand
Steps to follow:
1. Fill a test tube about 3/4-full of cooking oil (such as vegetable oil).
2. Add colored beads, glitter or Mylar confetti.
3. Finish filling the tube with cooking oil.
4. Seal it tightly with a cap.
5. Tip the tube back and forth to make a glitter wand!
Magnifying Glass
Steps to follow:
1. Fill a test tube to the top with water.
2. Seal it with a cap.
3. Hold the test tube against a newspaper or other print.
4. The water magnifies the words.
Rhythm Tube
Steps to follow:
1. Fill a test tube with different beads, pebbles, nuts, bolts, or anything else.
2. Seal it with a cap. Shake it.
3. Listen to the sound.
4. Experiment with different materials and the different sounds each type makes.
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© 2012 Be Amazing! Toys. All rights reserved
ed.04.13