Hey Mark!
This is such a great question! I am actually in the process of creating an Experiment Book that will have lots of experiments found in the UM and other experiments or demonstrations that support UM concepts in step by step formats with pictures and video and it should be a great help to those wanting to try out experiments for themselves or teach and show others. But until we finish it, here are a couple that you can try and maybe your children could use one of these for their science fair.
** Both of these experiments need adult supervision 🙂 **
Testing the Piezoelectricity in Rocks:
Piezoelectricity is a common topic throughout a lot of the chapters in The Earth System. For this experiment you could gather different kids of rocks and test them for a piezoelectric spark by rubbing them together creating friction. White Quartzite stones usually make the best flash of light but you could gather all types of rocks as well as some pieces of glass and makes a graph showing which ones made an electrical flash or light and which ones did not. They could talk about why those with higher quartz content will make an easier to see flash and why glass or any other melted rock will not have the piezo electric property. You can find information in the UM in chapter 5, section 7 &8 on why this happens and why its important.
Unseen Water in Rocks:
In Chapter 7.4 in the UM it talks about all natural rocks containing water. Although generally unknown to the public, researchers have known for decades that rocks and minerals contain water. This unsolved piece of Nature’s puzzle has just been neatly tucked away because it directly contradicts a molten melt origin. Trapped inside the rock beyond the limits of visible observation, deep within the molecular or crystal lattice structure, water exists.
Evidence that rocks came from water, not a melt, can be demonstrated easily by simply heating rocks. Because rocks contain water in their microstructure, when they are heated, the water will expand, vaporize and escape. This can be verified by comparing the weight of a rock prior to heating to the weight of the rock after heating. After the rock is heated and some of the water in the rocks molecular structure is released through steam, it will never weigh the same as it did before heating.
You could gather all different types of rocks and weigh and heat them and make a graph. A few things you should know as a caution though… rocks will explode if you heat them too high or too fast. I would recommend weighing them, you will need an electric scale that can go down to 1000ths of a gram. You can get one online for around $20, then place them in a metal baking sheet and heat the oven to 175 and wait a few min then increase it by 25 degrees every 5 min till you get to 300 or 400 degrees. I wouldn’t go over 400. Some may still pop inside the oven depending on how much water is inside them so for sure be there to supervise this experiment. 🙂 After you heat them you can take them out and let them cool down back to room temp before you weight them again. You can make a graph showing temperature and how much weight change occurred.
If neither of these experiments catch your eye let me know and I can give you some more ideas. 🙂 Destroying magnetism with heat, forming your own crystals out of a water environment, creating your own ice cube enhydros or melting rocks with a torch all would work great too. 🙂
