If you are interested in more of the science behind the Olympics, you can watch as few of these videos with your Science Buddy. Go to the Science of the Summer Olympics website. You will find a series of videos all about the engineering involved in the olympics.

Your mission is to make your own pipeline. Instead of metal or plastic that is used in your home, we will use paper instead. Are there any paper tubes around your house that you would use to make a pipeline? How can you make one yourself? Ask your Science Buddy to help you collect the materials and find the space to make your own paper pipeline. Click on the instructions below.

Mission Paper Pipelines

It will take time to design and build your pipeline. Remember to be patient and try again if something does not work just right. Engineers have to tinker with their designs to get things to work just right and they may change them over time to make them even better. 

When you are working, make sure to complete a Mission Report. Sketch out our pipeline design and explain how it worked. Try to answer the questions on the directions sheet. Remember that you can earn Brain Power points by describing your work in the Comments below. Don't forget to put your name so I know who you are.

If you are interested in the careers that help to keep the pipelines working and the engineer the pipes, watch the video below with your Science Buddy. 

What happens to an egg when you place it into water?
What are some things it can do? Does it float? Does it sink? Does it start to dissolve? Does it bubble?
Ask your science buddy to help you do this.

Whether or not something floats is based on its density. Density is a property of all things. It is a combination of how much space it takes up and how heavy it is. If you compare a pound of feathers to a pound of brick, which one would take up more space? The feathers would take up much more space than the brick. It is much less dense than the brick. Here is another explanation.

Here is your Mission Discovery Experiment for the Week:
Floating Eggs

You can try this in other ways too:
What happens when you add sugar instead of salt?
Do you get the same results with a hard-boiled egg?
Is there a difference between hot and cold water?
Can you use other objects in the same way - a golf ball or rubber bouncy ball for instance?

Here is a long-term experiment you can try too. (Idea by Steve Spangler)
Fill the bottom 1/5 of a tall glass with salt. Add just enough water to make a  wet salt layer. Carefully lower an egg down on top of the wet layer of salt.  Slowly add more water by pouring it down the sides of the glass so as not to  disturb the bottom layer of water. Cover the top of the glass with cellophane and a rubber band. Notice how the egg rests on the layer of undissolved salt on
the bottom of the glass.

Be sure to put the glass in a place where no one will be able to disturb it.  Observe for weeks. That's right, weeks. Months even! Over the course of the next several weeks, the bottom layer of salt will begin to dissolve in the water  above it. As the salt dissolves, the egg will rise off the bottom and float on the layer of salt water. As more time passes, the salt level continues to drop and the egg continues to rise. Be sure to put the glass in a place where no one  will be able to disturb it. Record the egg's progress by marking on the outside of the glass using a felt tip marker.  

You might wish to substitute a golf ball in place of the egg to avoid the decay of the egg's shell over time. The "golf ball" idea was originally published by Bob Becker, a great chemistry teacher from St. Louis, Missouri.