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.
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| Lemon Juice Group |
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| Corn Starch Group |
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| Baking Soda Group |
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| White Crayon Group |
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| 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???
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| Baking Soda with Grape Juice |
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| White Crayon with Highlighter |
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| Corn Starch with Iodine |
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| Milk with Heat |
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| Lemon Juice with Heat |
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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!
