Wild ! Science Global Science Challenge & review

If you're observant, you may have noticed that I added a new badge to the top of my sidebar yesterday, highlighting an amazing new giveaway from Wild! Science. The Wild! Science Global Science Challenge is giving families (2 adults and 2 children) everywhere the chance to win: A trip to Orlando Florida, Entry to Disney World, Accommodation at a 5-star resort for 7 days, Car hire for 7 days, a full set of Wild Science products and entry to the Kennedy Space Centre to meet a real astronaut!

To be in with a chance of winning this once in a lifetime prize, here's what you need to do:

1. Buy a Wild! Science Kit and send a receipt copy with your online application

2. Design and create an awesome new Wild! Science Kit

3. Write and illustrate a basic instruction book to show other kids how to use your awesome Wild! Science Kit.

To help get your creative juices flowing, let me show you one of the products in the existing Wild! Science range - the Lava Lamp & Glitter Tube Factory.

Juliette was instantly intrigued and started perusing the back of the box and the instruction leaflet. The fabulous thing about these kits is that they are educational as well as great fun, because the enclosed guide explains the science behind the experiments.

It clearly explains what you are using - in this case, sodium bicarbonate, citric acid and glycerine.

You also get all the material you need - containers, scoops, stirrers and the all important protective gloves (which makes it all seem more serious, grown-up and scientific, much to Juliette's delight).

The instructions are very easy to follow, even without parental input.

This made Juliette feel very proud of herself.

A bit of glitter in the glycerine, a funky LED colour-changing light in the bottom of the tube stand and hey presto, within 10 minutes, Juliette had created a very cool Glitter Tube.

It's not just about looking cool though, as the science is explained : "Create dazzling optical effects by reflecting light from glitter and bubbling water. In the glitter tube, the glitter is suspended in a thick liquid called glycerine. Each piece of glitter is a tiny mirror that reflects light and with lots of tiny mirrors, the light is scattered in all directions to create a sparkling effect."

On to the second experiment in the box - the Lava Lamp. "In the lava lamp, a fizzy chemical reaction between an acid and a base produces bubbles of carbon dioxide gas, creating a spectacular effect that looks just like an underwater volcano! Make your own light-up bubbling lava lamp and shimmering glitter tube to display in your room!"

I was very impressed that the kit allows you to create your own fizzy tablets because, in a different lava lamp experiment kit that we'd tried in the past (with a Mc2 doll), you had to use fizzy paracetamol tablets. I wasn't at all keen about kids playing around with medicine and thinking that pills and tablets are toys, so this version seems much safer and more responsible.

The fizzy tablet instantly reacted with the acid to create masses of bubbles and watching them move through the vegetable oil was very cool, especially when the LED light under the tube changed the colours for even better effects.

There are many other products in the range, including Cake Soap Factory, Bath Bomb Factory and Perfume Factory, all of which are great fun, educational and useful, because you end up with a finished product that you can actually use. Juliette has put the lava lamp and glitter tube in pride of place on her bedroom shelf and is delighted to have plenty of leftover ingredients to enable her to redo the experiments over and over again.

RRP : £14.99

Available at Smyths

For more information, head over to www.flairplc.co.uk and www.wildscience.net

Disclosure : We received the product in order to write an honest review.