Last Thursday and Sunday were fun days for me – you see, I took those days off of my usual schedule, and volunteered for the NY State Fair in Syracuse, with the Cornell Nanobiotechnology Center’s Main Street Science booth. There, we played with simple polymer chemistry in the 4-H Youth building, with kids of all ages.
Or, more accurately, we played with slime – ewww!!!:
The chemistry was simple, just combining a polyvinyl alcohol solution with a borax solution (along with food coloring and glitter):
And the kids loved it! Playing with slime will get any kid’s attention, and we were able to talk to them about endothermic reactions and how this sort of polymer chemistry is ubiquitous in an endless variety of everyday objects.
