Crystal
Ornament
Here's a fun project for Christmas, but you'll need to start
right after Thanksgiving, as the crystals take about 3 weeks
to form. As this requires boiling water, adult supervision is
highly recommended.
You'll need:
- Box of Epsom Salts, usually found at a pharmacy
- Colorful pipe cleaners
- Straight-sided, container that can hold about 2 cups liquid
- Old pencil or stick long enough to go over the container
While stirring a cup of boiling water, slowly pour in Epsom
Salts, adding about 1/4 cup at a time. It will hold quite a lot.
As soon as the solution won't turn clear with stirring, it is
time to stop.
Take one or two pretty, colorful pipe cleaners. Bend it into
some holiday shape at one end, leaving the other for a "hanger."
Hang it over a pencil suspended over a STRAIGHT SIDED container,
or you won't be able to get your crystal out. (I learned this
one the hard way, obviously.) Pour the Epsom Salt solution over
the pipe cleaner in the container. Set it in the warmest room
in your home where it won't be disturbed.
In about 3 weeks, the water will have evaporated, leaving
long, lovely crystals behind on the pipe cleaner, just in time
to hang up as an ornament.
Don't try to save for next year: this is very fragile, and
moisture in the air will dissolve it over time.
Note the sizes and shape of the crystals. The shape is similar
to the shape of the molecule of the salt. Computer chips are
made from slices (wafers) of huge silicon crystals.
You older "chemists" might enjoy making crystals
of other substances.
Other Crystal-Making Web Pages
Charcoal
Crystal Garden
Colorful, small, delicate crystals grow on a charcoal or brick
surface.
Crystals
on a String
This one uses baking soda.
Recipes
for Growing Sugar Crystals
A rather tasty experiment that you can eat after you tire of
looking at it.
Crystals Explained
Crystals:
More Than Meets the Eye
It is the purpose of this unit to acquaint the student with the
intriguing world of crystals, their structure, formation, and
uses. An advanced explanation from Yale University.
Snowflakes
and Snow Crystals
This site is all about snow crystals and snowflakes -- what they
are, where they come from, and just how these remarkably complex
and beautiful structures are created, quite literally, out of
thin air.
What
is a Crystal?
When we grow crystals we are separating all the building block
molecules into individual units in water and letting them fall
naturally into their appropriate place in the repetitive structure
as the water evaporates. Chemistry & New Zealand.
Yes,
Virginia, some snowflakes can look the same!
The old adage that 'no two snowflakes are alike' may ring true
for larger snowflakes, but it might not hold true for smaller,
simpler crystals that fall before they've had a chance to fully
develop.
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