Soapy sailing

Today some outdoor fun to celebrate the arrival of summer on Friday. Gather residents on the patio and try this fun and educational experiment.

Materials: Bar of soap, sugar cube, two buckets of water and 12 toothpicks.

Process: Place the toothpicks in a circle on the top of each bucket of water. Place a sugar cube in the center of one circle. Observe. Then place the bar of soap in the center of the second bucket's toothpick circle. Observe.

Result: The toothpicks are drawn towards the sugar but repelled from the soap. This happens because sugar absorbs the water and thus draws the toothpicks towards the cube. Soap creates an oily substance on the water and thus pushes the toothpicks away. Try this again with Dove and observe the results.