Science Articles for Kids

T

here is a lot to be learned from

a bubble! Bubbles can teach us

about life, light and strength.

The wall of a bubble has three parts.

There is an outer wall made of soap

or detergent, a center wall made of

water, and an inner wall that is also

made of soap or detergent. The

inside of the bubble is filled with air.

This structure of the bubble's wall is

very similar to that of membranes

found in living creatures like us.

Did you ever wonder how the

food you eat gets from inside your

stomach to inside your muscles? To

get to your muscles, the food must

first be digested. Then it must pass

through a set of membranes into

your blood. The nutrients then

circulate through your arteries to

your muscles, where they pass

through another set of membranes

into your muscles.

The next time that you blow bubbles,

look for a cluster of them, and watch

closely. If they don't pop too quickly,

you will see that the air from the

smaller bubbles will pass through the

bubble wall into a larger bubble on

the other side. This is very similar

to the way that oxygen passes from

your lungs through a membrane and

into your blood stream. The larger

bubbles are sturdier, because their

walls are not curved as much as

the walls of smaller bubbles.

Bubbles can also teach us

about light. The light from

the sun is made up of

many different colors.

Mixed together, they

look white. However,

it is possible to separate

the different colors of light

from each other with a prism.

Small drops of water or ice crystals

can work like a prism. You have

seen this for yourself, if you have

ever seen a rainbow.

The wall of a bubble can work the

same way. That is why bubbles are

iridescent. When light hits a