Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Ever microwaved soap?

There is a pin on pinterest that says ivory soap can grow from a teeny tiny bar soap to a soap mountain in under 90 seconds. I was skeptical, but I also thought it would make the coolest science lab ever if it worked. 
Luckily, my students were learning about the Attitudes of a Scientist. We spent the first 45 minutes of class defining and describing what it means to be Creative, Open-minded, Aware of Bias, Curious, Honest, Ethical, and Skeptical. Then we broke out the microwave and waited rather impatiently as the timer counted down to zero. 
90 seconds later we had our very own soap mountain! 
The soap isn't wet or slimy either. It feels like clay and is moldable. 
Th best part? It is still soap. You can wash your hands with it. This discovery provided the opportunity to talk about physical and chemical changes. 
 This lesson is going down in my teaching hall of fame. My students are still talking about it, they totally bought into the lesson and could give me examples from the lab for each attitude of science, and if we are getting braggy, the quiz grades for this set of standards were awesome! 

1 comment:

  1. Nice! I follow this blog b/c she tests pins: http://thecraftpatch.blogspot.com/

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