Galaxy Jars! 🌌🫙

Age Level: 7-9

🔎Stem Concepts Behind the Jars 👩‍🔬

Galaxy: a GIANT collection of stars, gas, and other things; these parts are all held together by gravity, the invisible force that pulls everything towards each other (this is why we don't float around!)

• Galaxies come in many different colors, shapes, and sizes. The temperature of a star determines the color you get to see!

  • Think about how fire can sometimes be orange (hot) or blue (super hot!)

• There are billions of galaxies around in our universe, and many of them are undiscovered.

The Milky Way Galaxy

• This is our home galaxy, even though there are trillions of galaxies, this one is still unexplored! It has at least 100 BILLION stars

• Even with our fastest rocket ships 🚀, it would take billions of years just to cross the Milky Way

• It is spiral-shaped

Materials ♺

• A clean jar, plastic or glass🫙 (or recycle a water bottle!)

• Cotton Balls

  • Our galaxy has lots of dust, which you can represent by adding cotton balls to your jar!

• Paint (Tempera, Acrylic, or even food coloring works) 🎨

  • Choose your favorite colors to personalize your galaxy!

• Glitter (finer glitters work best!)

  • Add your favorite colors and shapes of glitter; Galaxies are enormous, so think of just one speck as a star AND its surrounding planets

• Water

• Spoon

Procedure 📋

1) In a separate container, mix water with a few drops of food coloring or paint

2) Mix together, and repeat depending on how many different colors you want (usually 2-3)

3)Fill around 1/3 of the jar with cotton balls

4) Place some glitter on top and pour in the paint solution without fully covering the cotton balls with the liquid

5) Create a second and third layer by repeating the previous steps

• Use different colors for each layer

6)  Once you are happy with your jar, close it up super tightly and admire your galaxy!

DO NOT EAT OR DRINK

Test what you learned here!

As always, find out what interests you and explore more on your own!

If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, don't hesitate to reach out !

Have fun investigating!💖👩‍🔬