Questions

I know my children ask a lot of questions and I feel fairly confident to answer most of them, but a news report on the BBC website says that four in five UK parents have been stumped by a science question posed by their children, a poll has suggested.

The top three most-asked questions by children were: "Where do babies come from?", "What makes a rainbow?" and "Why is the sky blue?" (have your children asked you those ones yet?) and more than half of the 1,002 parents surveyed thought their children knew more about science than they did.

The survey of UK parents with children aged five to 16 was carried out to mark the launch of a new website by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The website - Science: So what? So everything - gives information to parents on answering those tricky questions from children, as well as downloadable activity sheets and ideas of places to visit.

How to answer about where babies come from? The website explains that babies are created when a cell from the mother and a cell from the father join together or "fuse". After the two cells fuse, the site goes on, they divide over and over again to create a ball of cells called an embryo that goes on to become a baby that grows inside the mother for nine months.

The website explains how a rainbow is made from light and water - with help from the sun.
And the sky is blue, it says, because the sun produces white light which is made up of all the colours of the rainbow.

But a clear, cloudless day-time sky is blue because molecules in the air scatter blue light from the sun more easily than they do red light.

So if you are stuck for the right answer and want another resource - take a look at Science: So what? So everything