ABSTRACT
Everybody loves bubbles and they provide a huge variety of possibilities for investigations for all ages. Children can become experts in bubbles; they could even make up a name for a bubbles scientist, such as a 'bubbleologist'. Make different-shaped bubble blowers using pipe cleaners, e.g. 2D shapes like stars, squares, triangles, or 3D shapes such as pyramids and cubes. Surface tension is a property of water that causes it to behave as if its surface were covered with a stretchy 'skin' because of invisible bonds that hold the water molecules together. Adding the detergent allows this 'skin' to become more elastic. Then it can be more like the skin of a balloon, stretching out and trapping air inside the bubble. Surface tension is the reason why bubbles are round because this is the shape that has the smallest surface area for a particular amount of air trapped inside.
