Fun At Home Science Activities – Physics for Kids

Written by Victoria, Summer Science Ambassador – At Home Science Activities

This week’s summer science activity is about kinetic and potential energy. Potential energy is when an object has energy stored and it has the ability to do something. So when you hold a ball in the air with your hands, it has energy stored and when you drop the ball, the energy is released. The energy then becomes kinetic energy. Kinetic energy keeps an object in motion when it’s already moving. So when you drop the ball kinetic energy and gravity cause it to keep moving toward the ground.

Experiment

For this week’s experiment we will be using popsicle sticks to store potential energy and create a chain reaction using kinetic energy.

Purpose

The purpose of this experiment is to show kinetic and potential energy in a simple way.

Materials:

For this experiment you will need:

Popsicle sticks

Instructions

Step 1: Place 2 popsicle sticks in an X shape but make the two of angles bigger and 2 smaller.

Step 2: Take another popsicle stick, put it under the bottom left corner of the X and over the top left corner of the X.

Step 3: Take yet another stick and put it under the top right corner of the X shape then over the stick you placed in Step 2.

Step 4: This is where it gets a bit more difficult. Take your next popsicle stick then put it under the top left corner of the original X shape and over the stick you placed in Step 3.

Step 5: From this point onward you should hold down the newest stick you place or all the sticks will explode outward. Now you will see 2 sticks pointing out a bit to the right hand side. Take the next stick and weave it under then over those 2 sticks. Now you should start seeing the pattern. Keep alternating sides and weaving over and under until you get the chain to the length you want. While you do this make sure you keep holding down the newest stick.