Homemade Science


Chemistry in Action: Gloop

The following article was written by my 10-year-old daughter, Sofia.

Hello! This is Sofia. Today my sister and I made a cool experiment—Gloop! It’s made of borax, glue, and water. We mixed it up outside and spent the next half-hour playing with it. I even made a Gloop bracelet!

The Gloop is stretchy and kind of sticky. Adding more borax makes it less sticky. It was white, but I bet adding food coloring could have changed that. After you knead it for a while, it becomes very easy to mold and acts kind of like stretchy, gloopy clay. It also is considered a “non-Newtonian fluid,” which means that it has characteristics of both solids and liquids.

Eliana likes it because, quote, “It’s sticky and fun. And you put it in a bag and play with it tomorrow.” I’m not actually sure how well it keeps, but I guess we’ll find out!

If you want to have your own Gloopy fun, here’s the recipe for Gloop:

Ingredients
Borax
Water
White glue

Instructions
1. Mix one teaspoon borax with 1/3 cup warm water in a bowl. Stir well.
2. Mix 1/6 cup white glue with 1/6 cup water in a different bowl. Stir well.
3. Mix the borax solution into the glue. Less borax makes a stickier Gloop. When the Gloop gets thick, knead it with your hands.
4. Play with the Gloop!
5. FOR SAFETY: Do not eat the Gloop. Throw it away in the trash, not the sink, or it will clog the drain.




Enjoy your Gloop!

We got this recipe from the book “Totally Gross Chemistry” by The Creative Activity Kit.

 

1 comments:

Michael Startzman said...

Great post and we had lots of fun playing with it!

Thanks for sharing Sophia!

July 1, 2009 at 8:29 AM

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Formerly, I've worked in publishing and been a medical student. Currently, I'm a freelance writer and copy editor, and full-time mom with two exceptional daughters. LivingLaVidaMama focuses on intentional frugality and the Specific Carbohydrate Diet that has dramatically improved my younger daughter's autistic-like symptoms. Contact me at MadForWriting at windstream.net