Page 70 - South Mississippi Living - April, 2021

Ready, set, grow! Creating your own colorful crystal
decorations is a fun way
to explore science with your child. This hands-on chemistry project is a simple and a ordable experiment that illustrates the properties of crystallization. Come learn with us!
Wide-mouth jars Fishing line Metallic Pipe Cleaners Food coloring Skewers or pencils Paper plates Scissors
Large pot
Water
Borax Laundry Booster
1. Bendpipecleanersintodesiredshape.Werecommendmetallicpipecleanersinjeweltones for a more realistic gemstone look. Make sure to keep the pipe cleaner shape pretty tight so that crystals can form solidly. We created clusters of three pipe cleaners of the same color.
2. Attach shinglinetothepipecleanerclustersandmeasuresothattheclusterswillhang from the skewers/pencils leaving at least 1⁄2 inch of space on each side, giving the crystal room to grow.
3. Boilenoughwaterto lleachjar,ensuringthatthepipecleaners will be fully submerged with at least 1⁄2 inch of liquid above them.
4. MixBoraxintotheboilingwateralittleatatimeuntilnomore Borax can be dissolved into the water. (Use at least 3-4 tablespoons of borax per every cup of water.)
5. Filleachjarwithboilingwater,addingfoodcoloringin coordinating colors to the pipe cleaners as you go. Make the water color more saturated than the color you want the crystals to be as they will not be as saturated in color as the water is.
6. Threadtheendsofthe shinglinenotattachedtothepipecleaner clusters through a hole in a paper plate and attach them to the skewers/pencils. Rest the skewers/pencils on the lip of the jars, letting them hang suspended in the water.
7. Nowhere'sthehardpart:waitovernighttoseeyoursparklygeodecreations!
8. Hangasasun-catcherorcutthe shinglinetouseasadecoration.
Crystals can form when a supersaturated liquid that contains a dissolved mineral cools. In this experiment, a supersaturated solution was made using hot water and borax, a soft crystal. The hot water caused the water molecules to move further away from each other so that more of the borax could dissolve into the solution. Once the solution reaches a point where it cannot dissolve any more borax, it becomes supersaturated. As the solution cools, the
water molecules come closer together again causing the forming borax crystals
to cling to the pipe cleaner.
Crystal: a solid containing an internal pattern of molecules that is regular, repeated, and geometrically arranged.
Molecule: the smallest
physical unit of a substance
that can exist independently. A molecule is made up one or more atoms held together by chemical forces.
Supersaturated solution: a solution that has been heated in order to dissolve more material than would be possible at room temperature.
70 | April 2021
www.smliving.net | SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living