Do you consider yourself the next Stephen Hawking or Leonardo da Vinci? With the advent of the Internet, home science projects are more accessible than ever (5 Online Science Projects You Can Get Involved in). There’s no end of YouTube tutorials and aspiring chemistry teachers ready to take you through a variety of experiments, all of which will leave you surprised and hopefully enlightened.
We’ve selected ten of our favorite science projects to suit people of all ages, whether you’re looking to expand your scientific understanding or introduce science to kids.
Read on to find out more…
1) Magic glow in the dark
What are potatoes for? Food, removing rust, desalinating soup — oh, and making dirt in the dark, obviously…
This process can be confusing so don’t try it if you’re not fully prepared, but if you want to surprise people with some cool goofball, check out the video below.

The process revolves around extracting the starch from the potato, peeling it, and then adding tonic water that glows under ultraviolet light. If you are doing this with young children, you must be careful not to let them eat the mixture — in small doses it is not dangerous, but extremely unhealthy.
2) Homemade Lava Lamp
Are you longing for sixties glitz in your salon? Try making your own lava lamp to recreate the rock and roll vibe!
Lava lamps were invented in 1963. They typically contain a colored waxy substance inside a translucent liquid that melts and bubbles on the surface when heated. At their peak in the late 60s, they were selling around 7 million a year and you can still buy them today.
They are surprisingly easy to make at home — you just need an empty plastic bottle, a glass of water, cooking oil, Alka Seltzer (or similar) and food coloring. Once you have all this, follow the instructions in the video below.

3) Make an alien egg
Do you know what osmosis is? In short, it is the process by which a solution on one side of a semipermeable membrane interacts with a higher concentration of a solute on the other side of the membrane, equalizing the concentration over time.

In the real world, he is responsible for a number of both positive and negative factors, from cholera epidemics ( 6 sane resources for studying Ebola and other sane outbreaks about Ebola and other sane outbreaks ) and murders. slugs (everyone poured salt on slugs as kids, right?) to rehydrate dried fruits and replenish our cells with water after a workout.
Using just an egg (with its predominantly chalk outer layer), a glass of vinegar (which contains 4-8% acetic acid and the rest water), and corn syrup, you can watch bi-directional osmosis happen before your very eyes. Then make the egg blue, because why not?
While you’re at it, check out the rest of the Sci Guys video — here’s another great, flaming bottle whistle.

4) Make a cloud at home
If you live in the UK, Northern Europe, or northern US/Canada, you are probably wondering why you want to create even more clouds. However, whether or not you’re lucky enough to live on a tropical beach all year round, this is a simple experiment to help you better understand our weather systems.
To create your own cloud in a bottle, all you need is pure alcohol, an empty plastic bottle, a cork and a pump. I’ll let Benjamin walk you through the process in the video below.