Inspiration
This week's science was inspired by a chemistry set about crystals the girls got last year from my parents. Chemistry sets and supplies are a good source of ideas with some semblance of safety. Some of these are instant or fast acting process and others are protracted and take place over the course of days and weeks with processes like evaporation taking place. Today's event is to make some Alum crystals with Alum powder mixed with something unlisted to make it blue.
Materials
100 ml water measured after boiling
Small pot to boil the water (non aluminum)
30 ml of Alum powder with blue
Mixing Bowl (non aluminum)
piece of granite to act as a rough seed bed
Notes
I got to talk about solutions, super saturated solutions, and nucleation with this project. We talked about the shape of the molecules affecting the shape of the crystals and what role a seed plays in the process. In this case a rough seed will give multiple nucleation sites so we should see various crystals forming in multiple directions.
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| Noelle with stylish goggles ready for some chemistry |
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| Measuring and pouring the water for boiling. |
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| Pouring in the Alum while the water boils. |
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| Mixing the 30ml of alum with 100 ml of boiling water makes a very dark blue solution. |
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| Working together to pour it in to the cup with the seed. |
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Cover and wait, wait wait. You'll have to wait for future weeks to see the results.
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I added some new pictures of the finished crystals at the end today.
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