Making+Gloop

**Materials:**
Borax, Water, Elmers Glue, Popsicle sticks, plastic cups, food coloring, plastic bags, plastic pipettes

Activity Plans:
1. Introduction to Polymers 2. Use materials to make gloop, making observations along the way.
 * Add equal amounts of water and elmers glue to a plastic cup
 * Stir with Popsicle stick
 * If desired, add food coloring. DO NOT add food coloring once you start adding the borax solution.
 * Make observations of the state of matter (solid, liquid, gas)
 * Slowly add borax solution using the plastic pipette
 * Make observations of what is happening as you add the borax
 * Continue this process until the gloop can be picked up out of the cup

3. Explain what is happening.

What’s happening?
When you mix glue with a bit of water, you make a substance that is known as a polymer. Polymers are very large molecules, formed by repeated patterns of chemical units strung together. The Borax solution is a 'cross-linking' substance that binds the polymer chains together to make the glue solution thicker. As the polymer chains get more 'cross-linked', it gets harder for them to move around, and your slime starts look like putty. Experiment with adding more Borax solution to see if this indeed makes the slime thicker. The trick to this experiment is knowing how much Borax to add. It you add too little, your slime will be too sticky due to the excess glue. If you add too much Borax there will be too much 'cross-linking' and it won't feel like slime.

Helpful Hints:
-Put some borax solution on their hands before they take the gloop out. -Never put the food coloring in once you start adding the borax.

This website has more info on this type of experiment []