The students of Global Indian International School, Whitefield learn a lot through the art of engaging in activities to discover the logical application of science in life. Thinking Thursday activities helps them to enhance their reasoning skills.

Grade 1 students learned about the concept of emulsion using a mixture of food colour, oil and water. They observed that immiscible liquids like water and vegetable oil, food colour and oil, when mixed together, the illusion of a colourful cloud or the effect of falling raindrops is known as an ‘emulsion’.

Grade 2 students were delighted to make a tornado in a jar or bottle. They filled the bottle with about 3/4 full with water and added in a few drops of blue food dye. Then they added a teaspoon of both dish soap and vinegar and finally put the lid on. They swirled the bottle to create a tornado in a circular motion that created a water vortex that looked like a mini tornado. They were also explained that vortexes found in nature usually appeared in the form of tornadoes, hurricanes and waterspouts.

In the pepper and soap experiment done by Grade 3, they spread pepper as germs in a bowl of water and observed that when they touched the pepper with soap on their fingertips, the pepper was moving away from that part. This activity was meant to teach them the importance of washing hands with soap.

During the ‘Storm in a Glass’ activity, the students of Grade 4 understood the process of precipitation that occurs in nature. As a part of the experiment, the students were asked to fill the glass 1/2 full of water and sprayed some shaving cream on top of the water to fill the glass to 3/4 full.  The young learners used their finger or a spoon to spread the shaving cream as layers over the top of the water. Then they mixed 1/2-cup water with 10 drops of food colouring in a separate container and gently added the coloured water, using a spoon, to the top of the shaving cream. When it got heavy, the students were excited to observe the water falling out just as the clouds precipitate as rain, snow, sleet or hail.

Grade 5 students enjoyed doing the magical milk art using the phenomenon of surface tension. In order to understand this phenomenon in detail, children poured some milk into the bowl. They put one drop of each food color in different places in the milk and put just a tiny amount of dish soap on the end of the cotton swab, then touched it to one of the colors. It was explained that since milk had fat in it and so the food coloring was seen floating on top of the fat. The fat is all connected with bonds. Dish soaps are used on greasy or oily dishes because it broke the bonds in fats allowing them to separate. When drops of dish soap are added to the milk, it was seen that the fat separated and moved to create an amazing milk art.