LETS MAKE SLIME!!
Make one or make them all. It’s up to you. Have a little fun and learn a little about the chemistry behind SLIME!!
Classic slime:
- Borax powder
- Water
- 4 ounce (120 ml) glue (white or colored)
- Teaspoon
- Bowl
- Jar or measuring cup
- Food coloring (optional)
- Measuring cup
How to Make Slime
- Pour the glue into the jar. If you have a big bottle of glue, you want 4 oz or 1/2 cup of glue.
- Fill the empty glue bottle with water and stir it into the glue (or add 1/2 cup of water).
- If desired, add food coloring. Otherwise, the slime will be an opaque white.
- In a separate, mix one cup (240 ml) of water into the bowl and add 1 teaspoon (5 ml) of borax powder.
- Slowly stir the glue mixture into the bowl of borax solution.
- Place the slime that forms into your hands and knead until it feels dry. Don't worry about the excess water remaining in the bowl.
- The more the slime is played with, the firmer and less sticky it will become.
- Have fun!
- Store your slime in a zip-lock bag in the fridge (otherwise, it will develop mold).
How Slime Works
Slime is a type of non-Newtonian fluid. In a Newtonian fluid, viscosity (ability to flow) is only affected by temperature. Typically, if you cool a fluid down, it flows more slowly. In a non-Newtonian fluid, other factors besides temperature affect viscosity. Slime viscosity changes according to pressure and shear stress. So, if you squeeze or stir slime, it will flow differently than if you let it slide through your fingers.
WOW!! There sure are a lot of big words in that paragraph!! Lets learn what some of them mean.
Newtonian fliud- Named after Sir Isaac Newton. He described how ‘normal’ liquids or fluids behave, and he observed that they have a constant viscosity.
Viscosity means how the liquids flow. Have you ever watched water run? It flows pretty easily right? It has a low viscosity. How about the syrup that you put on your pancakes? Syrup has a high viscosity and does not flow very easy.
A Newtonian fluid is believed to only change viscosity due to temperature or pressure change. Think about your water and your maple syrup again. If you make them cold or frozen how does their flow change? If you make them hot does their flow change or stay the same? They are Newtonian fluids. Their flow changes with temperate.
What type of viscosity do you think slime has?
Slime is a non- Newtonian fluid. That means that fluids change their viscosity or flow behavior under stress.
Think about your slime. If you hold you slime in your hand and be perfectly still how does it move or flow? Now if you close your hand and squeeze your slime does it flow differently? How about if you lay your slime down and smack it? Or if you grab it with both hands and stretch it? Does it react differently each time?
Make a list of your observations to share with your group.
Does everyone’s slime react the exact same way to the different types of stress? Why do you think the results turned out the way they did?
How to make Fluffy Slime:
Make sure you start off with the right ingredients!
1/2 cup White Washable School Glue
3 cups Foam Shaving Cream
1 tbsp Saline Solution {active ingredients should be sodium borate and boric acid}
1/4-1/2 tsp Baking Soda
Food Coloring {optional}
Bowl, Measuring Cups, Spoon
TIP: Always follow the directions carefully! Slime making is a recipe just like baking cookies. An alternative for this slime is to experiment with the amount of shaving cream you want to use.
1: Measure and add 3-4 generous cups of foam shaving cream to a large mixing bowl. (Go ahead and experiment with an amount that makes you happy!)
2: Next, add food coloring if desired and gently stir to mix color.
3: Measure and add 1/2 cup of white glue and gently stir to combine.
4: Add 1/2 teaspoon or so of baking soda to mixture and gently stir.
5: Lastly, measure out 1 tablespoon of contact solution and add to bowl.
6: Whip the mixture to activate the slime. It will begin to pull away from sides and bottom of bowl.
7: Pick up your slime and knead it until smooth and stretchy and no longer sticky.
TIP: Squeeze a few drops of saline solution on your hands before picking up slime, makes it stick less while you knead it. Kneading it is important to improving the consistency of the slime.
Don’t go crazy adding more saline solution until you have spent some time kneading it. This will reduce the stickiness. If you add too much saline initially, you will end up with rubbery slime.
FLUFFY SLIME SCIENCE
What’s the science behind fluffy slime? The borate ions in the slime activator (contact solution) mixes with the PVA (polyvinyl-acetate) glue and forms this cool stretchy substance. This is called cross linking!
The glue is a polymer and is made up of long, repeating, and identical strands or molecules. These molecules will flow past one another keeping the glue in a liquid state.
The addition of water is important to this process. It helps the strands to slide more easily over one another creating ooze. Think about when you leave a gob of glue out, and you find it hard and rubbery the next day.
In the case of the fluffy slime, the foam shaving cream is in place of the water and creates the lift in the slime. Now, we know that foam shaving cream is filled with air too. What happens over time? Did the shaving cream loses the air and the fluffy slime loses a bit of the fluff.
When you add the borate ions to the mixture, it starts to connect these long strands together. They begin to tangle and mix until the substance is less like the liquid you started with and is thicker and rubberier like slime!
How to make Edible Slime:
Adult supervision is necessary for handling very hot liquids, operating the microwave oven, and overseeing how much tasting is going on.
SMORE Slime
Jumbo Marshmallows
Powdered Sugar
Instant Chocolate Pudding Mix (Powdered)
1: Add marshmallows to a microwave safe bowl and microwave for 30 sec intervals to melt. This should take about a minute. MARSHMALLOW WILL BE HOT
2: Next you want to add the instant chocolate pudding mix to the marshmallows and stir. This step will also help the mixture cool down.
3: Powder sugar your hands up and then start kneading the mixture. Continue to add powdered sugar to the mixture till stickiness is gone.
Edible science?!
While microwaving your marshmallows what did you observe?
As the microwave bakes the marshmallow, the water in the marshmallow heats up and warms the air. When air becomes hot, it expands, forcing the marshmallow to puff up. The water also softens the sugars, causing it to ooze. Is that what you observed?
The relationship between temperature and volume is representative of Charles’ Law.
It states that the volume of a fixed mass of a gas is directly proportional to the temperature. This law applies to ideal gases held at a constant pressure, where only the volume and temperature are allowed to change.
6 Fun Facts about Charles’ Law
- Jacques Charles, who formulated Charles’ Law of Ideal Gases, is also the inventor of the first hydrogen gas balloon, which made its first flight in August, 1783.
- On heating up a fixed mass of gas, that is, increasing the temperature, the volume also increases. Similarly, on cooling, the volume of the gas decreases.
- Air conditioners and Fans function using Charles’ Law. Hot air rises up and cold air comes down. Fans function on revolving the air, whereas air conditioners also give off a blast of cold air from compressed coolants.
- Breads and cakes also use Charles’ Law of Ideal Gases. Carbon dioxide trapped in fermented dough, expands on baking and causes fluffy breads and cakes.
- If you keep aerosol and deodorant spray cans in sunlight, they can burst. Compressed gases will expand when the temperature inside the cans increases.
- Steam engines and car combustion engines also work on the principle that gases expand as temperatures increase. Charles Law is used to apply mechanical movements in these engines.
Together with your group make a chart or list of the similarities and differences in the 3 types of slime that you made. Share your slime recipes and what you’ve learned with your family.
