Bill Nye and Beakman, wacky intellectual descendants of TV's original Mr. Wizard, have sites that support their popular kids science TV programs. Sit down at the PC, launch your browser, and head for Bill Nye the Science Guy. Click on the Demo of the Day, where a different home science project is featured daily. Archiving the projects must also be a do-it-yourself enterprise, since the site offers no repository of past activities.

You Can with Beakman and Jax, on the other hand, contains dozens of fun science projects you can do at home. The sites includes such entries as How Do you Make Gak or Silly Putty? How Does Soap Work? Where Do Farts Come From and Why Do They Smell Bad? (the number one question kids ask Beakman's World TV Show), and Why Don't Spiders Get Caught in Their Own Webs?

For projects that are a bit more involved, go to Bizarre Stuff You Can Make In Your Kitchen and click on Index. There are almost 100 projects here, including the classics: how to make a volcano and how to grow a mold garden. These experiments require materials such as lemons (for making electricity), apples (for making shrunken heads, as it's against the law to use human heads in most countries), glass tubes (for making stink bombs), as well as open flames, so the projects might not be safe for children experimenting solo. The site certainly is not for young children and the disclaimers can be amusing - such as the one for smoke bombs: "Stink bombs have the potential to really annoy folks. Don't blame me if you become a social outcast for using them."

The Science Club: Kid's Science Projects breaks its lists of experiments and activities into three sections: Simple Projects, Medium Difficulty Projects, and Advanced Projects. Simple Projects has easy directions for building a telescope and watching magnetic fields in a bottle of baby oil by using steel wool fibers and a magnet. Under Medium Difficulty Projects, learn how to build an electric generator (you'll need a drill and a few inexpensive items from an electronics store). Would you believe Advanced Projects includes instructions for building an antigravity chamber? Links to sister sites Weird Science, Amateur Science, and Science Hobbyist form a sort of kitchen science We3b ring with The Science Club. They are maintained by the same webmaster, Bill Beaty,m an electrical engineer/programmer based in Seattle, Washington who has been fascinated with electrostatic physics since learning how to zap other guys with static electricity in his 7^th grade gym class.

There are many other sites for budding home scientists. The experiments at YES Mag's Projects range from making a paper airplane to growing crystals to building a robot.

Fun Science Gallery, posted in Italian and English, has excellent instructions for making an herbarium (a collection of documented plant specimens). This site shows you why experimenting with herbs isn't just for old hippies.

The Edible/Inedible Experiments Archive, found under MAD Labs at MadSciNet contains age-rated projects in six categories: Astronomy, Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Mathematics, and Physics. Some projects can be eaten before, during, or after their experiments.

Remember: When performing kitchen science with a child, stress and teach good safety practices. Be sure to supervise projects that have potential for harm and mayhem, and review projects before letting a child tackle them on their own. You might not want to let an infant loose with fire and chemicals.

Additional Projects & Resources

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