Everyone is talking about climate change. As global temperatures rise, this will lead to melting of glaciers and sea ice. If this causes a rise in sea levels, this will…
As light passes through transparent objects, it bends. This can create optical illusions like disappearing bowls, bending pencils and mirages. This is called refraction, and is useful in magnifying glasses…
El Niño, or the ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation), is a pattern of weather changes that usually occur around Christmas. El Niño means ‘the little boy’ or ‘the Christ Child’….
Water exists in three states – solid ice, liquid water and gaseous steam. Solids have a fixed shape and size. Liquids can change in shape, but have a fixed size….
White light is made up of a mixture of different colours (see ‘Making a Rainbow: Breaking Light Into Colour’). Light travels in waves, and different colours have different wavelengths. Things…
Rubber is a natural product made from latex. Many plants, including dandelions, produce latex but most of the world’s latex, the key ingredient of rubber, comes from the rubber tree,…
Oil and water don’t mix – they are described as ‘immiscible’. Crude oil floats on the sea after a spill from a tanker. Motor oil shows up as a sheen…
Different parts of the country have soft or hard water. Hard water is water that has travelled through certain types of rock, including limestone, chalk and dolomite, and has forms…
Potatoes are tubers produced by the stems of the plant called Solanum tuberosum, which is part of the same family as tomatoes, peppers and aubergines. The plant produces tubers to…
