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Unit 3: Matter Page 25
Activities, Experiments, Projects
Lesson 2: Solids
Note: This section is an abbreviated overview of the experiments online.
excite the water molecules and
Experiment: Microwaving your kids will never look at the
Soap soap the same way again.
When you warm up leftovers, have Toss a naked bar of Ivory soap
you ever wondered why the onto a glass or ceramic plate and
microwave heats the food and not stick it into the microwave on HIGH
the plate? (Well, some plates, for 2-3 minutes. Watch intently
anyway.) It has to do with the way and remove when it reaches a
microwaves work. “maximum”. Be careful when you
touch it after taking it out of the
Microwaves use dielectric heating microwave oven – it may still hold
(or high frequency heating) to heat steam inside. You can still use the
your food. Basically, the microwave soap after this experiment!
oven shoots light beams that are
tuned to excite the water molecule. Experiment: Landry Soap
Foods that contain water will step Crystals
up a notch in energy levels as
heat. (The microwave radiation can Can we really make crystals out of
also excite other polarized soap? You bet! These crystals
molecules in addition to the water grow really fast, provided your
molecule, which is why some solution is properly saturated. In
plates also get hot.) only 12 hours, you should have
sizable crystals sprouting up.
The following experiment is a quick
example of this principle using a You can do this experiment with
naked bar of Ivory soap. The trick skewers, string, or pipe cleaners.
is to use Ivory, which contains an The advantage of using pipe
unusually high amount of air. Since cleaners is that you can twist the
air contains water moisture, Ivory pipe cleaners together into
also has water hidden inside the interesting shapes, such as a
bar of soap. The microwave will
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