KidScience: Growing their first crystal

 

My kids love PBSKids (the only TV channel I let them watch!) and among their favorite shows is Arthur.  In one episode, the kids have to come up with a science experiment and Francine chose to grow a sugar crystal.  Eliza has been fascinated by the idea ever since, and so I thought I'd help my kids grow their own.  I didn't think it could be that hard; just dump a bunch of sugar in some water and watch it accumulate on the string.  Well, several days later and no crystal to be seen, they gave up on their unscientific mother and went to Daddy. 

Like the good researcher that he is, Steve went online and promptly found several methods for growing sugar crystals (none of which used my "dump a bunch of sugar in cold water" technique...imagine that!).  He helped the kids choose a "recipe", and several cups of sugar later (including some that got spilled on the hot flat ceramic stove, and is still there to this day...but what's a little scorched sugar in the name of science?) they got their real crystal environment set up. 

 It has been so fun to see how excited the kids have been during the crystal growing process this past week.  Every day, first thing in the morning and right after school, they check their crystal to see its progress.  Then they run and tell me (or bring me to see it too) and yell excitedly about how much bigger it had grown since the day before. 

I think we're going to have to find some more science experiments, the kids have been having such a blast with this one.  Any ideas, anyone?

 

Here are a few quick shots of the kids I took today.  I took the tripod and camera outside and had Eliza take some headshots of me (you may have noticed the new photo of yours truly on my sidebar...after 6 months I finally got around to getting my picture taken for my mug shot!) for the blog, and of course the kids wanted to pose too.

 

Here's Eliza looking all sweet and coy - Mommy's eager little photo apprentice.  She did a good job standing there pressing the shutter button for me - thank goodness for digital photo technology, where I can delete the 90% of goofy expressions and blurry shots and only save the few "keepers". 

Things sure are easier nowadays in that regard...I remember the eagerness and excitement of waiting until the whole roll of film was shot, taking it to the drugstore for processing, waiting a day or two to get it back, and then the final moment arrived; seeing the long-anticipated photographic results.  There were many times when I would be disappointed at a messed-up shot due to closed eyes, silly expression, or some other goof-up that was too late to do anything about...I sure am grateful for today's cameras with instant replay and large LCD screens on which to review your shots.  Yet another indicator of our instant-gratification, "I-want-it-now" mindsets....although I must admit that I'm quite happy with this particular manifestation of immediate results!  Go digital cameras, go.

Comments

[EdithSonger]

We grew some really cool snowflake ornaments using Borax and pipe cleaners. Here is a site that tells how. (There are many more out there.) You can make your base as detailed as you want before you grow crystals on it. They do tend to dull over time, but to begin with they are really pretty.
http://chemistry.about.com/cs/howtos/ht/boraxsnowflake.htm

[jacqui jones]

crystal growing is fun..:)

[Jay]

So funny about the crystals. We have a seemingly failed sugar crystal growth and so we googled it. Hubby wanted to see a picture of what it is supposed to look like. But isn't that science-trial and error.

[Bellybutton51698]

how did you do it i want to do it for my science experiment for the science fair