Nursery children shaping up to be boffins of the future with Scientots in York

A cabbage of course: that lovely red cabbage that is a staple of so many lovely winter menus.

Children as young as three and four and learning all about its "magical" properties at a special session at their nursery.

They are taking part in Scientots, a fun and engaging activity run by Steph Thurman, a former science teacher.

As Steph prepares for the lesson to start, a dozen enthusiastic volunteers from Little Green Rascals nursery at Elvington start bustling around, pulling on white lab coats and fixing mini goggles around their eyes. One latecomer screams "Scientots" as he hurtles towards the make-shift lab.

Steph begins by bringing out something she has prepared earlier: a Tupperware full of stewed red cabbage, which the kids are quick to point out is more purple than red.

"Yes, it's silly that it is called red," acknowledges Steph. "It's not red, it's purple. It's magic – it turns lots of different colours."

They each scoop a heap into a pestle and mortar and begin mashing it up. Next they add water and keep mixing until they get a pool of deep purple liquid. "It's like a purple hot chocolate," shouts out one little lad.

To be honest, it looks more like a hot Ribena.

Next, the children are given glass beakers and pipettes and practise lifting the water out of the dish and into the beaker. "I'm an expert at this," calls out a little girl, who has mastered the technique in no time.

"We are going to do some magic with that next," says Steph. "Red cabbage is very, very special. If we mix it with different things, it changes colour."

To prove her point, Steph issues each child with a dimple tray and fills a series of plastic bowls with a range of products including shampoo, toothpaste, washing powder, lemon, vinegar, water and bicarbonate of soda.

Using their pipettes, the children first put a few drops of the purple cabbage water in their dimple tray, then add a few drops of one of the products. "Wow, it's gone pink," exclaims one child as he adds some lemon juice to his tray. Vinegar creates the same effect, while shampoo turns the purple liquid blue and washing powder makes it go green.

Using colour-coded cards, Steph tells the children that the lemon and vinegar that turn the purple liquid pink are called acids and anything that makes it go green is an alkali. If there is no change, it is neutral.

"It's not really magic," she says. "It looks like magic, but it is science."

To see the effects on a bigger scale, Steph brings out a large, glass, conical flask. Into this she pours the leftover purple cabbage water, then lots of washing powder. The children take it in turns to swirl the flask, mixing the substances together until the liquid turns a lovely sea green. Next they add vinegar, making it blue. They keep adding the vinegar until it goes back to purple.

Time is up, and although the children may not have completely grasped the facts behind the lesson, they have been thoroughly engaged and enjoyed taking part in the experiments and seeing at first hand the wonders of science.

Which is exactly the purpose of Scientots. Steph set up her business two years ago, after leaving teaching to concentrate on her family (she has two young daughters, Elsie, three, and Amelia five).

She spent the first year writing lesson plans and building up classes. She now teaches at more than ten nurseries across the York area.

She firmly believes children are never too young to get switched on to science. "It is nice to work with children at such an early age. I come in and they shout "science". They are so excited, it is lovely."

The lessons are adventurous too. Steph has taught her charges all about electricity and had them making little circuits to try to conduct electricity. They've looked at space and planets as well as life cycles when Steph brought caterpillars and butterflies into the classroom. They have even studied forensics. "We said that Santa had had all the presents stolen from his grotto and we had to track down the thief," says Steph. The children had to match fingerprints and work out the height of the suspect from footprints left at the scene. There was another clue too: a blob of ink. The children were given six pens from six different suspects and did a test by placing a blob of ink from each pen on paper and adding water. By studying the ink spread, they could work out which pen matched the ink found at the scene and hence deduce the guilty party.

Steph says it is encouraging that just as many girls come to Scientots classes as boys – and seem to enjoy them equally.

"The children see science as something positive and fun. When they go to school and the teacher says it's science today, they are going to think: 'great'. Hopefully they will keep thinking that."

Find out more at scientots.co.uk