Drinking Bird

December excitement has been hard on our homeschool routine so we decided to go for a more fun Art and Science emphasis for the month. Today's lesson utilized this Thermodynamic drinking bird. The boys thought it was neat that it was invented 95 years ago and is still fascinating. We talked about how the evaporation of the water on the red felt cools the methylene chloride vapor, condensing it, decreasing the pressure and pushing the liquid up into the neck of the bird. 

Before we talked over the science of it though, they made lots of guesses and had to experiment to get the balance just right so that the bird, which they named Dunce (it may have been called a stupid bird in both laughter and frustration), would tip over the correct direction. They counted the number of swings before it tipped, fiddled with it, got frustrated, came back to it, and eventually got it to work. Landon thought it was funnier when his head tipped backwards instead of forwards, but Ethan was very relieved to finally get it setup just right.

I won't say that today's lesson really ended up being easier but they definitely enjoyed it in the end!