Putty

Today you will be making putty. Please be careful to keep your work area clean and wash all items when you are finished.

Each partner should use the Sharpie to write his/her name on one Ziploc bag to store your putty in when finished.

Please put on a pair of vinyl gloves and a pair of safety glasses before you begin. Though the items used are common household items, they can cause eye and skin irritation in some people.

1. Fill the large measuring cup half full of cold water.

2. Turn on the red scale. Click the unit button until the "g" appears on the right of the screen. This stands for grams.

3 Place an empty 100ml beaker on the scale and press the zero button. This should change the number on the scale to zero. Doing this lets the scale know there is an item on it, but doesn't count the weight of your beaker in your measurements.

4. Fill the beaker with water until it reaches 60 grams. Notice how many milliliters of water this is.

5. Pour the water into one of the white cups (the one labeled "glue solution" unless it has washed off).

6. Place a second beaker on the scale and CAREFULLY add 63 grams of the glue. Notice how many milliliters of glue this is.

Though both are the same number of milliliters (the same volume), the weight is different. This is because the glue is more dense than the water. That allows it to take up the same amount of space (volume), but weigh more.

7. Pour the glue into the white cup with the water. Use a popsicle stick to scrape out all of the glue and then to stir the water and glue together until completely mixed. Set cup aside. This is your glue mixture. You will NOT use the glue bottle again.

8. In the second white cup (labeled "borax solution"), pour 100 milliliters of water and add 1 tsp of Borax. Use another stick to stir this mixture together. Be sure to stir with the stick all the way to the bottom of the cup until the Borax dissolves. This is your Borax solution. You will NOT use the powdered Borax again.

9. Place one of the colored paper cups on the scale and press zero.

10. Add 40 grams of the glue mixture to the cup. Repeat this step with a second paper cup. Set both cups aside.

11. Place an empty paper cup on the scale (if it doesn't still read zero, press the zero button).

12. Add 25 grams of the Borax solution to the cup. Repeat this step with a second paper cup.

Each partner should now have one cup of glue mixture and one cup of Borax solution. Each person should use one of the previously used popsicle sticks to complete the next steps.

13. Pour the Borax solution into the glue mixture and stir together. Be sure to hold the cup as you stir.

14. As you stir, the mixture will begin to clump. Keep stirring. You may need to poke at the clumped mixture as you stir.

15. Continue this process until mixture no longer contains excess water.

16. Use hands to peel mixture out of cups. It will still be a little wet, but will become more solid as you work with it.

17. Work the mixture with your hands until it forms a solid mass.

At this point you can take some time to play with the putty and examine how it moves, bounces, etc. Gloves can be removed and placed in trash can.

Place your putty in the bag with your name and seal tightly. Set aside.

Turn on warm water in the sink. Be careful, the hot water gets hot QUICKLY. With the water running, pour any leftover glue mixture from cup and beaker down drain with water running. Rinse out cup and beaker until clean (you may need to use a paper towel to clan it out) and dry them. Leave water running.

Pour any borax mixture down drain and clean out all other plastic cups and beakers that were used. "Clean" means there should not be remnants left in or on any items. Turn off water and dry all materials.

Used paper cups, sticks, and gloves should be placed in trash.

All materials should be clean (including outside of glue bottle) and placed back into clear tub. Use wet paper towels to clean counter area and then dry it.

Place bag of putty with name on top of the washer. It can be picked up at the end of the school day.

DO NOT OPEN IT IN THE BUILDING OR ON THE BUS.

If you have time left:

If you still have class time left, watch the video below and then work on the webgames section of this site until class is over. DO NOT LEAVE YOUR STATION!