Chemistry at Home: Slime
Hey. I'm Melissa.
Jam:I'm Jam.
Melissa:And I'm a chemist.
Jam:And I'm not.
Melissa:And welcome to chemistry for your life.
Jam:The podcast helps you do chemistry at home in your everyday life For fun.
Melissa:Okay, Jam. So I had you do an experiment.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:Can you tell me what you did?
Jam:I can tell you what I did. So I took some Used water bottles, like, cheap water bottles and cut them in half to to have 2 disposable containers, And I took some school glue.
Melissa:That's a nice reusing of plastic. I appreciate that.
Jam:Yeah. Well, I I'm out of town and didn't have some reusable cups and didn't wanna buy, like, a huge pack of them. You know what I mean? If they don't you can't just buy 2, obviously. And so I had some school glue And some borax, they told me to get, which I've heard of borax.
Jam:Never had to use it for any reason. So I was like
Melissa:Me neither.
Jam:I like, I hope I can find this. This seems like one of those things that's, like, old school, like, hope it's still at the supermarket. Maybe it is. Who actually buys it still?
Melissa:Was it at the supermarket?
Jam:It was. Yep.
Melissa:Nice.
Jam:I bought it just in time last night at, like, 11:50 PM, And the store closed at midnight.
Melissa:So Wow. That's getting close.
Jam:Yeah. Thanks, Meyer. And I so I got some borax, some school glue, And I put, a tablespoon of water in each of the makeshift plastic cups, And then I put a 4th a tablespoon of borax into one of the containers. And I put a tablespoon of school glue in the other container.
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:And then I stir them up separately With some chopsticks.
Melissa:Nice. Some chopsticks. That's a good that's a good disposable option. That's And then gonna get messed up.
Jam:Yeah. And they just were here, so it's perfect. I was like, nay. I couldn't find yeah. I mean, just just add limited stuff, but it ended up being perfect.
Jam:So Stirred those all up and then mixed them together and stirred it up again. And it started getting very thick pretty quickly
Melissa:Nice.
Jam:And then got very globby And so I made gooey.
Melissa:Or the so you made slime?
Jam:Yes. I made slime.
Melissa:Did you squeeze it out, the excess water? Like, did when did you transition to your hands?
Jam:I was gonna go grab a paper towel to kinda, like, go some of the extra water. I stepped away for a second. When it came back, it had stuck to the chopstick. And so I just pulled up the chopstick, And all the slime came, and a lot of excess water just stayed in the, bottom. So I really didn't have to do it like, try to try that hard to get the extra water out.
Melissa:Nice. And, did you play with it? Was it fun?
Jam:I did play with it, and it was fun. I was just like, this is so weird. Also, I didn't have any food coloring, which I talk about in the video when I was doing this, experiment and recommended other people do it because it also just kinda looks really not Very cool. It's just a white, relative to how cool it could look if you got really crazy creative with it. It just is like a white blob, And it looks kinda just like until you really mess with it, it's like, is that just a blob of glue still?
Jam:So but it was really weird how How much the consistency changed? I was very surprised.
Melissa:Yes. So that is how you make slime. Mhmm. And the reason I picked this experiment today is because can you guess what the slime is is made up of on a molecular level?
Jam:Wait. Today. Made up of does it have something to do with, like, the season or the or the time of the year or something?
Melissa:It's on theme with what we've been chatting about lately.
Jam:Oh, is it a polymer?
Melissa:It is a polymer. Nice. Nice. Nice. So what you did was make a slime out of polymer.
Melissa:There's other kinds of slime, but this one was polymer Climb.
Jam:Nice.
Melissa:So you don't have to get into this too much with your kids, but since we've been talking about polymers and polymer chains, We talked about how on chain link fences or when you weave a blanket, there's extra links, and that makes it stronger, makes it more solid solid y.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:That's what we did here. So the borax interacts with the glue. Glue is already a polymer chain. But the borax interacts with the glue to cross link those polymer chains.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:And that's why it becomes more solid.
Jam:What is borax? I could've probably just looked that up, but, like, what even is it?
Melissa:It's a salt. It's known as sodium borate, sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate. So the formula is sodium. Mhmm. There's 2 positive sodium ions.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:And then there's what's called a polyatomic ion with 4 borons, 5 oxygens, And then 4 more Oh groups, which is an alcohol with a minus charge called hydroxy. I don't think that really matters too much people, but it's a salt Okay. Is the best way to describe it. So it's Basically, some positive ions with some negative ions, and they all hang out together.
Jam:Nice.
Melissa:And I think the The borate part of it, that that part of the salt is the one that actually does the linking between the glue.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:I didn't go too in-depth because I didn't figure parents would wanna talk to their kids about that. Right.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:And it's always hard to know how much people really wanna know about the molecular side of This chemistry, but I figured just knowing that the borax cross links, the preexisting polymer chains in the glue would be enough. So that's the chemistry behind it.
Jam:Nice.
Melissa:Now when you mixed the water with the glue, did it get A little bit more thin? Was it, like, a thinner solution? Okay.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:So one good thing that you can do to Get your kids engaged is always ask them questions and get them to make predictions. So you can ask your kids, what do you think is gonna happen when we add this glue to this water? Mhmm. And what do you think is gonna happen when we add this powder to this water? Now what do you think is gonna happen if we mix it together?
Melissa:And get them to make those predictions. And that is that is one of the best ways to get them invested in the outcome. Then I would also ask what color do you think it's gonna be when you mix it together? So you could use 1 or 2 drops of food coloring, and it'll be a much lighter shade of that because of the white that already exists in there. So it'll be like a very light blue or a very light green.
Melissa:And this was also adapted from a video from the American Society, but the Scientific American had an article that had basically the same experiment, but they did 3 different ratios. So they made 3 different levels of cross linked polymer with different textures to it. So you could also go check that out. We'll link to that in our show notes that can maybe make it a little bit more interesting for older kids. Yeah.
Melissa:And then just let them play with the slime. Ask them to describe what it looks, how it feels like. Those observations are part of the scientific mindset. You know? So being able to Look at something, think about it, and describe it.
Melissa:That is a good skill to have. And then let them be curious. So if they ask, I wonder what would happen if we do this. Try it. Mhmm.
Melissa:And let them see. If you want to make it a little bit more artistic, I've seen people take glitter and put it in the The slime, I've seen people take tiny toys and hide it in there. There is a big trend for a while of making slime and Selling it in the, teeny bopper. One of my friends' nieces got really into making slime and selling it, and she had one that had really tiny toys made out of doughnuts like or really tiny donut toys. Like, very, very miniature donuts that were hard plastic, and she dispersed them in her slime.
Melissa:So it was like a donut Slime Yeah. Is very fun. So you can do all kinds of stuff with your slime.
Jam:That's so cool. I remember I don't I don't know what, what version we made. But when I was in 3rd grade, I made some slime. We had this, like, thing where We'd it was always known in our school as the 3rd grade market, and you'd learn about just, you know, the basics of economics and, like, You sell something. There's costs to what you make, and then you sell it for a certain price.
Jam:And what you have with over is called profit. Like, the very basic building blocks of Business.
Melissa:That's fun. They they did the 3rd grade market.
Jam:Yeah. It was way fun. And everybody like, all the other students, you know, would would buy stuff, stuff and everything costs, you know, like, less than a dollar. And Mhmm. So everybody knows about it.
Jam:Especially when you're younger, you, like, go buy stuff, and you're like, oh, can't wait till I I'm in 3rd grade, and I'm gonna go Make something cool and sell it. And so I really wanted to make some slime. And I don't know what the recipe my mom looked at, but we made Sam, we made it really, like, glittery and really crazy, different colors and stuff, and sold it in in little Easter eggs, can containers of it.
Melissa:Oh, and Easter eggs. That's a good container.
Jam:Yeah. It was perfect. And they made it it made it really small, but they sold them for 50¢ or something like that. But It was it was a lot of fun. I I was having flashbacks to that when I was playing with the slime earlier.
Melissa:That is so fun. That's a good story. So, see, you might have kids that when they're grown up and parents, they remember how much fun they had making slime in 3rd grade. That's really cool. Oh, that's really fun.
Melissa:Now I will say some younger kids, I've noticed, get kind of freaked out by slime. They'd they're some if they're if they're probably 2 or 3. Mhmm. And they can communicate with you that you think they might think it's fun. A lot of them, I've noticed, don't wanna get their hands dirty.
Jam:Oh, yeah.
Melissa:So and we'll do this later, but there's a cornstarch and water experiment, and a lot of kids look at that and say absolutely not to me until they're older. So it's kinda fun to see when they're willing to do it because they don't they're kinda weirded out by something that they don't recognize.
Jam:Yeah. Interesting. Very good. I think it definitely changes at some point where there's an age where it's, like, getting messy starts being really appealing.
Melissa:Yes.
Jam:Jump in some puddles, that kinda thing. You know?
Melissa:Mhmm. I mean, you can always try it. Corn sordid water is pretty low stakes, and even this borax and Elmer's glue is. And I would say, Really let them run with it as long as they're not gonna explore something. This can maybe stick to clothes and stuff.
Jam:Oh, yeah.
Melissa:So be careful about That kind of stuff, but let them try things out, and you can always make more slime. So if they're ruining the slime, that does not matter because you can get a pretty big amount of borax and Just kinda go to town for pretty cheap. Yeah. Because in
Jam:the situation I was in and you couldn't find a small amount of borax, then you Might have a lot of slime potential going on because I have a big old box of 4 x now. Been like, I don't know how I'm gonna do with this, so I better just make more slime.
Melissa:Yeah. Well, we could portion it out and give it to the neighborhood kids for Halloween instead of candy. That is a good idea. Maybe not this year, but next year.
Jam:Yeah. One thing I was gonna say I actually say it in the video too, but my wife was kind enough to tell me that she's seen kids come in with, like, just skin irritation from the borax. If they don't wash their hands really well after you know, it wouldn't be every kid, I don't think, but she Notice that there should've been an uptick in that. I guess maybe the experiment kind of got more popular again at some point.
Melissa:Yes. I think that's what's been happening with that lately. The kids are really into slime.
Jam:Yeah. So she started seeing more kids come in that had had skin irritation. So just told me, and I mentioned in the video too, that just make sure you wash your hands really well after handling it, and maybe don't play with it for, like, hours and hours and straight or something like that.
Melissa:Yeah. That's a good that's a good input from our friend, the, pediatric nurse practitioner, friend and friend of the show.
Jam:If your kid has, like, sensitive scan or something, then it's probably better to to play it safe a little bit.
Melissa:And also another PSA is you should throw this in the trash when you're done with it, Not put it down the sink because it can clog up drains.
Jam:Oh, yeah. Think that would not be fun.
Melissa:Not at all. So don't let your kid shove it down the drain just to see what happens. Don't let them ruin anything with it, but let them try things with it. Okay. Well, that's it.
Melissa:That's our experiment for this week. Thanks for trying that out, Jam.
Jam:Of course. Of course. It was fun. Thanks for teaching me. This episode of Chemistry For Your Life was created by Melissa Colini and Jam Robinson.
Jam:And we'd like to give a special thanks to E Robinson who reviewed this episode.
