STEMing for Kids: Shamrock and Rainbow Crystals
St. Patrick’s Day is coming, and our stores will soon be filled with green decorations, rainbows, pots of gold, four-leaf clovers, and leprechauns. If you are wanting to decorate your house with green, four-leaf clovers, and rainbows while simultaneously doing science with your child, making shamrock and rainbow crystals is the perfect project for you! These crystal decorations are easy to make, and your child can be creative and design diverse shapes on which to grow their crystals.
You will need the following supplies to grow crystals:
9 Tablespoons of Borax (3 tablespoons for every cup of water)
3 Cups of Water
Glass Jars/Containers
Popsicle Sticks
Pipe Cleaners
First, shape the pipe cleaners into the forms that you would like to use to grow your crystals on. You can combine multiple pipe cleaners to make images – such as a rainbow – and use string to hold the pipe cleaners together. Wrap (or tie) the pipe cleaner shapes to popsicle sticks so that such shape can hang suspended in the liquid Borax solution with the popsicle stick laying on the rim to keep the pipe cleaner from falling to the bottom of the jar.
Second, boil the water. You will need to use 1 cup of boiling water for every 3 tablespoons of Borax.
Third, measure out the needed amount of Borax in a mixing bowl, and add the corresponding amount of boiling water. Mix the water and Borax together until the Borax is fully dissolved.
Fourth, pour the Borax and water mixture into your glass jars/containers making sure that each jar has enough liquid to cover your pipe cleaner shapes.
Fifth, submerge your pipe cleaner shapes into the Borax mixture. Make sure that the pipe cleaner design is fully suspended in the liquid and not touching the sides or the bottom of the jar/container.
Lastly, place the glass jars/containers that are filled with the Borax solution and pipe cleaner designs in a safe and still place where they will not be bumped or jiggled. Within approximately 16 hours, the crystals will be formed, and the pipe cleaner shapes will look like they have a thick, off-white crust on them. Once there is a thick crust on your pipe cleaner shapes, take them out of the jars/containers and place them on a paper towel to dry. Use hot water to clean the crystal crust that may have formed in your glass jars/containers.
As you are waiting for your crystal-laden shapes to dry or while you are hanging them around your house (hint: they are beautiful to place by windows), it is the perfect time to explain the science behind crystal making. Little Bins Little Hands writes the following how and why Borax-crystals form (see https://littlebinsforlittlehands.com/crystal-rainbow-science-borax-crystal-growing-activity/):
Crystal growing is a neat chemistry project that is a quick set up involving liquids, solids, and soluble solutions. Because there are still solid particles within the liquid mixture, if left untouched, the particles will settle to form crystals. Water is made up of molecules. When you boil the water, the molecules move away from one another. When you freeze water, they move closer to one another. Boiling hot water allows for more borax powder to dissolve to create the desired saturated solution.
As the solution cools down there [will suddenly be] more particles in the water as the molecules move back together. Some of these particles will start to fall out of the suspended state they were once in, and the particles will start to settle on the pipe cleaners as well as the container and form crystals. Once a tiny seed crystal is started, more of the falling material bonds with it to form bigger crystals.
