Experiences

Your own experiments

Lic. Vasile Alecsandri

Romania

High Secondary School

Chemistry, Biology, Science

Teaching in class, Extracurricular activity

Direct, Indirect

We always encourage students to participate in experiments at home. Of course explaining their safety methods and what are allowed to do and what not.
11. Quick sand is a fascinating substance, make some of your own and experiment on a safe scale. Amaze your friends by demonstrating how it works. What you need is 1 cup of maize cornflower; water; a large plastic container and a spoon. Ask students to mix the cornflower and water in the container to make their own instant quick sand. When showing other people how it works stir slowly and drip the quick sand to show it is a liquid. Stirring it quickly will make it hard and allow you to punch or poke it quickly. Remember that quick sand is messy, try to play with it outside and don’t forget to stir just before you use it. Always stir instant quicksand just before you use it. Ask students to come up with their own explanation.
If you add just the right amount of water to cornflower it becomes very thick when you stir it quickly. This happens because the cornflower grains are mixed up and can’t slide over each other due to the lack of water between them. Stirring slowly allows more water between the cornflower grains, letting them slide over each other much easier.