MARTINEZ STREAM NIGHT 2024

Welcome to “Go Green! Stream Night” 2024 from Billie Martinez Elementary!

STREAM stands for Science, Technology, Recreation, Engineering, Art, and Music. At our unique event, students, families, and community members gather at Martinez to participate in booths, experiments, and activities geared toward the six STREAM topics. This year’s theme is Go Green! Thank you to all the families and staff members who brought in recycled items so that our stations can use up-cycled, recycled, and reused materials. Here is the map of our event:

Here are the directions for each station in case you missed a booth, or missed the entire event, or would like to do more fun STREAM activities at home.

Homemade Drums

Flower Seed Bombs

This is something you can start at STREAM night and enjoy all Spring! Earth Day Seed Bombs

Combine paper pulp and seeds to create a ball.
Place in a bag to take it home.
Take it out of the bag to dry at home.
After Mother’s Day plant your bomb and watch your flowers grow!

Bouncy Balls

Homemade bouncy balls are easy and fun and can be made with household items. Borax Bouncy Balls
Materials
2 tablespoon of Elmer’s glue
2 teaspoons of Borax solution (made using 2 tablespoons of water and 1 teaspoon of Borax)
Food coloring

1) You need to stir the glue and borax solution together REALLY well. After 2 minutes of stirring with a spoon, get your hands into the bowl and start mixing it with your finger tips (breaking the mixture apart and then squeezing it back together).

2) After mixing the ingredients, you might have separate ‘clumps’ of mixture in your bowl. Gather these together in your hands, and start pressing them into each other with the palms of your hands. Don’t just press the same two sides together, flip it around, turn it on its side, so that you’re pressing it from all angles. After 5 minutes, you should have a single ‘clump’ of mixture.

3) Start rolling the mixture into a ball really gently. If you’re too rough, it can break apart into separate clumps and you have to go back to Tip 2.

The Science Behind the Fun

When the borax and glue are mixed together, a chemical reaction occurs. The borax acts as a “cross-linker” to the polymer molecules in the glue – basically it creates chains of molecules that stay together when you pick them up.

Elephant Toothpaste

Elephant Toothpaste is always a big, messy hit.

Elephant toothpaste

Materials

Empty plastic bottle
Dry yeast (found in the baking section of the grocery store)
Warm water
Liquid dish soap
3% hydrogen peroxide
Measuring cups
Measuring spoons
Safety glasses
Large tub or tray to catch the foam
Location for the activity that can tolerate spills (of hydrogen peroxide as well as possibly food coloring), such as a kitchen or bathroom—or an outdoor location
Liquid food coloring (optional)
Different-shaped bottles or glasses (optional)

Procedure

Measure 1/2 cup of hydrogen peroxide, and carefully pour it into the bottle.

Add a big squirt of dish soap into the bottle, and swirl gently to mix.

If you want to make your foam a single color, add a few drops of food coloring directly into the hydrogen peroxide, and swirl the bottle gently to mix. If you want to give your foam stripes like some toothpastes, put the drops along the inside rim of the bottle’s mouth. Let them drip down the inside of the bottle, but do not mix.

In a measuring cup mix together one tablespoon of yeast and three tablespoons of warm water. Stir for about 30 seconds.

Pour the yeast mixture into the bottle then quickly step back, and watch your reaction go! What happens? How long does the reaction last?

The science behind the experiment:

The yeast contains an enzyme called Catalase that breaks down hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) into oxygen gas and water. The oxygen gas gets trapped by the soap, and you get a large foamy solution that squirts out of the top of the bottle!