ingridscience

Test seawater for pH (it is generally pH 8 or basic).
Compare to drinking water (neutral or slightly acidic/basic).
Compare to stream water, pond water and fish tank water (usually neutral).
Students might also want to test the pH of their spit (neutral).

Water chemistry varies with the kind of rock that the water flows over/through, and the chemicals that are added during treatment.

Ocean water becomes more acidic as more carbon dioxide dissolves in it, which happens as the atmospheric carbon dioxide goes up.

Vancouver drinking water is from North Vancouver watersheds, and is naturally slightly acidic. The treatment process makes it a little higher pH.

From Metro Vancovuer website 2021:
Metro Vancouver currently delivers water with a pH of 7.7.
Adjusting the pH is an existing key component of Metro Vancouver’s water treatment process because our untreated source water is naturally slightly acidic. Increasing the pH to a target range of 8.3 to 8.5 will:
• Reduce the release of copper from pipes in buildings caused by low pH in the region’s water;
• Reduce leaks in pipes caused by copper corrosion;
• Help preserve the lifespan of pipes and hot water tanks; and
• Reduce green stains on tubs, sinks, and grout.

Sorting feathers:
Feathers can be sorted into types. The wing and tail feathers are long. The tail feathers have the hard tube or 'rachis' up the middle. On wing feathers the rachis is to one side. Both of these kind of feathers are used to push air and help the bird fly and change direction.
Body feathers have fluffy barbs at the bottom of the feather which are for trapping air and insulating the bird.

See these images for feather types: https://www.birdsoutsidemywindow.org/2019/12/17/how-to-identify-feather… (second image) or https://academy.allaboutbirds.org/wp-content/uploads/Bird_Biology-feath… (from https://academy.allaboutbirds.org/feathers-article/)
See these images for which feathers are on which parts of a bird: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Structures-morphotypes-and-body-pos…

Looking at feather structure:
On a long wing or tail feather, gently pull the barbs (the hairs coming off the shaft), until they pull apart, then stroke them back together again.
The barbs have little hooks (called barbules) that zip together and keep the feather in a flat plane. The flat plane can push air and help the bird fly and change direction.
Look closely at feathers under the magnifier and microscope. Find the interlocking barbules along the barbs.
Feather structure diagram: https://www.britannica.com/science/feather

Fluffy downy feathers do not have barbules. Their barbs float apart and form air pockets that are excellent for insulation.

When birds preen, they pull their feathers through their beak to zip barbs together again.
They also add oil, so that the feathers are waterproof.

Light the paper and drop it into the bottle.
As it goes out place the egg on the top of the bottle.

As the air in the bottle cools again and contracts, the low pressure in the bottle pulls the egg into it.

Prepare the rocket by drilling through the cork.

Add water to the rocket, insert the cork containing the needle attached to the pump.
Put it in the stand/stand upright.
Ask everyone to stand well back, as it will take off with no warning at high speed.
Pump air into the rocket until it takes off.

The pressure of air in the bottle above the water increases until it is too high to be held in by the cork.
As the cork flies out, the water flies out too, helping project the rocket higher.

Experiment with amount of water for the best flight.
Too much water means there is too much weight. Too little means there is not so much water shooting out to project the rocket higher.

Lots of great explanation, plus how to construct on the Naked Scientists website: http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/experiments/exp/water-rockets/

Add a little ethanol to the jug.
Swirl it around to coat the sides and evaporate into the volume of the flask.
Ignite at the top.

Discuss the chemistry of the reaction:
ethanol + oxygen -> water and CO2
Model the chemistry of the combustion reaction

Light the ping pong ball and watch it burn.

The ping pong ball is fuel for a combustion reaction: it combines with oxygen to release heat and light. Carbon dioxide and water are made, along with an ash.

Once the combustion reaction starts, the heat it generates keeps the reaction going.

Either build the starting molecules, or ask students to make them: one ethanol molecule and three oxygen molecules.

Tell/remind students that ethanol is a fuel that burns in oxygen, and that when the fuel and oxygen chemically react their atoms come apart and recombine into new molecules.
One of those new molecules is water (H2O), and it makes three of them.
Ask students to pull apart their ethanol and oxygen molecules, and rearrange them to make three water molecules.
Then tell them that the remaining atoms and bonds make the other reaction product. There are two identical molecules of this second product.
Give them time to use up all the remaining atoms and bonds to make two identical molecules. With time, they should arrive at CO2, or carbon dioxide.

So when ethanol (or other fuels) burn in oxygen the reaction products are water and carbon dioxide.
Sometimes carbon (as soot) is also made, when not all the carbon combines with oxygen (called incomplete combustion).

Additional information on the flames that are often present during combustion:
The flame is a mixture of hot gases, primarily CO2, water vapour, oxygen and nitrogen (nitrogen comes from other materials that burn).
Energy in the flame excites the electrons in some of the transient reaction intermediates such as the Methylidyne radical (CH) and Diatomic carbon (C2), which results in the emission of visible light (blue and green for these radicals) as these substances release their excess energy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame