Monday, March 9, 2009

Rainbow Crystals of Glass and Polymers

Today we made rainbows using polymer crystals and glass crystals. Here is the glass crystal....



And here is our really cool solar powered crystal that makes moving rainbows all over the room in the mornings....


Then we moved on to polymer crystal rainbows. These are the polymers we used from Steve Spangler Science.....


We had two colors, red and yellow. The polymers started out looking like this.......


And this...........

Then we added some water and food coloring to get a polymer crystal rainbow!



Here they are up close.......


The more water we added the bigger the polymers got and the more the colors spread.


We learned a lot about polymer crystals, the colors in rainbows and these words......


Such a fun rainbow day!

11 comments:

Stephanie said...

We did these in a tube... but doing them in a bowl is a great idea! Since we don't have enough to fill the tube, we'll have to do it in a tiny bowl, intead. Or a jar.

Lovely!!

Stephanie said...

enough left, I meant.

Joy said...

Hmmm...I might have to get some of those water polymer crystals. That looks like fun!

Ciara Brehony said...

This is amazing! Thanks for sharing!

nettlejuice said...

Oh, I hope we get into crystals soon. So much of the universe to explore, only so many waking hours in a day.

Tammy said...

Oh...WOW...!!!

Those polymer crystals are so cool! So beautiful! So vibrant! Will they keep for a while, do you think?

And the thought of "moving rainbows all over the room in the mornings..." is so pretty to imagine. Rainbows in the morning just sounds so magical.

Anne said...

I love rainbows..
I have a lead crystal that hangs in the window that catches the morning sun rays and covers the kitchen/dinning area in rainbows each morning.

Tammy said...

Hmmm...it's almost 11:30 pm, and I'm having too much fun on the Steve Spangler website! roflol

Thanks so much for sharing it with us. :)

Leanne said...

How interesting....what a great thing to experiement with!

Unknown said...

Lisa, Your crystal rainbows are FABULOUS! Did you know that you can layer the crystals in a vase or a bottle and they will continue to color mix? I could not tell if you colored the crystals secondary colors by your photos, but, did you know, if you layer only red, yellow and blue hydrated crystals, the primary colors will begin to share fluids and blend into secondary colors. Eventually the entire vase will become one solid color. If you enjoyed the crystals, you may like our pinch and mix experiment: http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/pinch-and-mix-color-mixing I look forward to seeing more of your awesome photos! Your daughters are very lucky!!

Peggy said...

Thanks for linking me up in your melty rainbow post! I should make the cake for you and mail it to ohio! xo peggy