New Science at Home Video Project

[TheSciGuys]

Hey Everyone, my brother-in-law and I started a YouTube channel called The Sci Guys where we do cool, do-it-yourself science experiments. Here's a link to the first episode, we would really appreciate if you would check it out and leave us a comment with what you think. We want to try and help spread science as a fun activity in families with kids to assist with their science education.

The first episode is on Electrolysis:
http://www.youtube.com/thesciguys/

If you like it a lot please subscribe and share it around to help spread science into every home!!

[TheSciGuys]

I hope people don't think this is spam. We are honestly looking for feedback :)

[Marshall]

Hi, I watched your electrolysis home-experiment demo and liked it. I also like that you are making it freely available---which is a generous public service. And that you are clearly safety conscious (including coaching kids about the safe responsible disposal of materials and cleaning of equipment after experiment is done.

The graphics are attractive neat and effective. Your text is understandable by 11 or 12 year olds I guess, maybe grade school kids as well as middle school. These are a good audience to introduce to experimental science.

Other people here may give you more helpful response. I can't think of much to say.

I found myself wondering about plus and minus. You didn't say which pole of the battery was connected to the spoon where the bubbles were forming. Your animation did not show IONS. just individual atoms.

But in a short introduction you can't cover everything without losing 11 year olds attention. Maybe a second episode on electrolysis some time.

I will be curious to see what other episodes you come up with. Please keep us posted on future videos as you put them up on YouTube.

If you eventually were to go commercial I think our rules would mean we'd have to close the thread but I don't see that happening, at least not in immediate future. So I think it's a fine open educational project and more power to you! Good luck with it---hoping to see more.

[Marshall]

I notice that you have bubbles coming up from the NEG spoon which would be hydrogen gas (on the whole mostly)

but the video shows no bubbles from the POZ spoon.

In this diagram of the industrial electrolysis of salt brine used to produce chlorine gas and sodium hydroxide (plus hydrogen byproduct) the chlorine gas evolves at the positive terminal. And hydrogen bubbles up at the negative terminal while the water around it becomes an alkaline solution of sodium hydroxide in water.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... mbrane.svg

The cell in the diagram has a membrane which will let little sodium ions thru but won't let chlorines thru.

I think that if you don't have a membrane the chorine that develops at the POZ spoon just remains dissolved in the water and eventually encounters NaOH and reacts to form some sodium hypochlorite and stuff like that. But this seems kind of confusing and irrelevant in the context of a neat science experiment for school kids. Anyway you might tell them that the NEG spoon is the one with extra electrons and when water comes apart some of it becomes H+ which is MISSING an electron.
So that is why the H+ likes to go to the NEG spoon and when it picks up an electron from the spoon it goes back into normal hydrogen and can bubble up out of the brine as hydrogen gas.

So it is the spoon that you touch to the pole of the battery labeled "-" that gets the bubbles.

The spoon you touch to the pole labeled "+" does not appear to get bubbles.
Just my two cents.
Anyway more power to you. Fun to teach kids.

[phillipsshawn]

I completely agree. Your video is really great and the text is written in very simple language that may be understood by all.

[BadgerJelly]

I like what you are trying to do. I do not think there is anything "fun" about it though.

Maybe it would be useful to explain how these techniques are used in industries?

My personal experience of science is that the really exciting stuff is deemed to difficult for kids to understand. I do not think that is the case because the basic ideas and questions can be expressed without the use of complex mathematics.

I wish you all the best.