Teach Primary Issue 18.7

Splat! Get hands-on with slimy science in this tactile matter workshop... JACKSON HEMMI NG www.teachwire.net | 31 Let’s start by introducing the principles of matter; use household examples to contextualise learning. This can be a bit tricky with gases, but blowing up a balloon or getting children to wave their arms in the air can help. For liquids you can pour out glasses of water, and for solids choose a few objects with different textures (think school jumper, plastic ruler, and wooden pencil). What can we tell about solids, liquids and gases from this exploration? How do they behave differently? Now it’s time to introduce the slime! I’ve spent months researching and testing different ingredients to create eco-friendly slime, eventually settling on cornflour, xanthan gum and water – all ingredients that are biodegradable. To make it, just mix 30ml of water with two pinches of xanthan gum in a bowl. Then slowly mix in one quarter of a cup of cornflour. You can make this at the front of the class and have the children watch, or even set pupils up in groups to make their own. Finally, try a comparison test. Pupils can use the scientific method to identify a question, like ‘does food colouring affect the principles of our slime?’. Experiment by creating two different types of slime. Then get the children to look at the results and see what their conclusion is. It’s always fun to see if your experiment answered your question. For example, does the amount of food colouring matter? Does the colour make a difference? Why do we think this is? Now we have our slime, get the children to use their knowledge of the different states of matter to try to define what category the slime could fall into. Ask them to think back to the first two activities; does the slime behave like a solid, liquid or gas? This allows them to apply their learning about particles and matter to their own investigation. It’s a great way to get them using their science enquiry skills and to think like real scientists. Next, get up and active with a particle dance. Divide the class into three groups, and have each one demonstrate a different state of matter: huddle together for solids, spread out in wavy lines for liquids, and shake around in a space for gases. This can reinforce the properties of matter and allow children to consider how each one behaves. Rotate the groups after a couple of minutes so everyone has a go at replicating each state of matter. S lime – it’s squishy, stretchy, jiggly and fun, but did you know it’s also a great tool for teaching science? As a non-Newtonian fluid – something that acts as a liquid or a solid depending on howmuch pressure you apply to it – slime is the perfect tool to demonstrate the various properties of matter in an interactive and relatable way. Unfortunately, though, many types of slime are created using glue, a plastic polymer, which contributes to plastic pollution when thrown away; not very eco-friendly. So why not make your own, and get the children involved, too? Jackson Hemming is a curiosity officer at Winchester Science Centre who’s always looking for newways to engage children with science and nature. F EATURE S S C I ENC E winchestersciencecentre.org