Bess Ruff, MA
Environmental Scientist
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Co-authored Articles (120)
How to
Balance Chemical Equations
Taking a dive into the world of chemical equations? These problems can seem tricky at a glance, but they’re easy to figure out once you learn the basic steps and rules to balancing them. Not to worry; we’ll walk you ...
How to
Make Activated Charcoal
Activated charcoal, sometimes called activated carbon, is useful for purifying contaminated water or polluted air. In emergency situations, activated charcoal can be used to remove dangerous toxins and poisons from your ...
How to
Make Elephant Toothpaste
Making elephant toothpaste is an easy and fun science experiment that you can do with your kids at home or with students in the lab. It is the result of a chemical reaction that creates a large amount of oozing foam. The...
Thermite Formula: Ingredients, Tips, and Everything You Need to Know
A step-by-step guide to making thermite at home, complete with safety information Of all the do-it-yourself chemistry experiments found online, there’s almost nothing cooler—or maybe hotter—than a thermite reaction...
How to Make an Explosion
Have a blast with these fun and safe ways to create an explosion at home To call it an experiment would be incorrect (you are doing a demonstration!) but no matter what you call it, an explosion is a great way to have fu...
How to
Soften Rubber
If you’ve ever found a rubber band snapped free from its place around a pack of baseball cards, pulled out an old pair of favorite sneakers and found them stiff as a board, or had your vacuum cleaner break down because...
How to
Make an Animal Cell for a Science Project
Cells are one of the important building blocks of living organisms. If you're learning biology in school, your teacher might ask you to create your own model of an animal cell to help you understand how cells work. You m...
How to
Neutralize Bleach
Bleach is an amazingly cheap and effective disinfectant and clothes’ brightener, and it also comes in handy when stripping and cleaning wood. However, bleach is an extremely corrosive substance, capable of damaging fab...
How to
Anodize Aluminum
Anodizing uses acid to create a corrosion- and wear-resistant layer on top of a metal. The process of anodizing also changes the crystal structure near the surface of substances, like aluminum alloy, which allows you to ...
How to
Electroplate Household Metals
Electroplating is a process used to coat one metal with that of a separate metal. There are many objects in our everyday lives that have been plated with other metals: gold-plated jewelry, nickel and copper plated coins,...
How to
Set a Barometer
A barometer measures air pressure and can forecast the weather within a 12 to 24 hour period. Air pressure can be measured in inches of mercury, millimeters of mercury, or hectopascals, depending on where you live and th...
How to
Read the Periodic Table
If you find the periodic table confusing and difficult to understand, you aren’t alone! Understanding how it works can be hard, but learning how to read it will help you be successful in the sciences. Start by recogniz...
How to
Find Valence Electrons
In chemistry, ''valence electrons'' are the electrons that are located in the outermost electron shell of an element. Knowing how to find the number of valence electrons in a particular atom is an important skill for che...
How to
Make Potassium Nitrate
Potassium nitrate (saltpeter) is a useful chemical for science experiments, fertilizers, and gunpowder since it’s an ionic salt. Collecting bat guano from caves used to be the main way to obtain potassium nitrate but t...
How to
Read Wind Barbs
Wind barbs are simple visual presentations of wind speed from a given direction. Use this tool to figure out which way the wind is blowing, and at what speed. Meteorologists use these simple diagrams to interpret the cur...
Four Ways to Make Salt Water Drinkable
Desalination methods for science projects or wilderness survivalDesalination is the process of removing salt from saltwater, which might be necessary due to a lack of clean drinking water in your area. You might also nee...
How to
Neutralize Ammonia
Ammonia is a base compound that can be hazardous and toxic in high quantities. Ammonia is produced with the breakdown of animal and vegetable matter, including the breakdown of protein in urine. Pets and cleaning product...
How Do You Make Dry Ice?
Make and use dry ice quickly and safely at homeDry ice is the solid form of the chemical carbon dioxide (CO2), just like normal ice is the solid form of water (H2O). Dry ice is extremely cold (-109.3°F or -78.5°C), so ...
How to
Make a Microscope
Microscopes vary in type and power, but the most common type uses a combination of lenses to magnify an image. This allows you to see things that you wouldn’t be able to view with your naked eye. If you want to build y...
How to
Formulate White Phenyle
White phenyle (sometimes written as phenyl) is a disinfecting agent made from pine oil. It is made by using an emulsifier- a compound that allows an oil to stably make a solution with water. Without the addition of an em...
