Secret Writing...Come Alive!

I had my master's class this evening, and it was extremely enlightening. We presented all of our hard work from throughout the semester and it was so refreshing to see all of the great, creative ideas for projects and activities that people were able to come up with. The assignment was this: conduct a science experiment with your class and then research how a science fair works in your school. Not so difficult right? Well the kids and I put together a great experiment about invisible writing. The kids really wanted to know what was the best way to send secret notes to their friends and so the experiment began! We tested five different methods: white crayon, lemon juice, milk, corn starch, and baking powder. The kids predicted that the milk would prove to be the best material to compose a secret message with.

Lemon Juice Group

Corn Starch Group

Baking Soda Group

White Crayon Group

Milk Group

The kids composed their secret messages and then set them on the windowsill to dry. Although it was torturous, we waited one whole hour before attempting to reveal our messages. This time around the children chose a different message to reveal than the one they had originally created. Each group was given an item to help them in revealing their messages. The lemon juice and milk groups used the heat from a light bulb, the white crayon group used a highlighter, the corn starch group used iodine, and finally the baking powder group used grape juice. I wonder which method worked the best???

Baking Soda with Grape Juice

White Crayon with Highlighter

Corn Starch with Iodine

Milk with Heat

Lemon Juice with Heat

And the winner is....white crayon with highlighter! The kids were a little disappointed that none of the other methods were successful and that their hypothesis was incorrect, but overall it was an extremely fun experiment to do together!