Maybe you've roasted the seeds for a yummy snack? Or maybe you compost the pumpkin innards. But have you ever made pumpkin slime?!
If you've followed us at Yellow Scope for awhile, you know we love slime! From our 6 Recipes of Slime to Rainbow Slime, we're big fans. But now that it's October, we wondered if we could make some special Hallowe'en slime!
In this month's 20 Minute Lab, we'll use pumpkin pulp and some common household ingredients to make ooey, gooey slime!
LET'S GET STARTED!
WHAT'S GOING ON?
What makes slime so satisfying? Well, it looks pretty cool, but the essence of slime is its texture. It's liquidy enough that it will squeeze through your fingers, but solid enough it won't just pour out of your hands. Something that has both liquid and solid qualities at the same time is called a non-Newtonian fluid.
Let's start with the glue. Glue is made of long molecules called polymers. Polymers are long chains of repeating units, like small sections of necklaces. Glue is made up of lots and lots of these little units of polymers that can slide over each other; this is what makes glue flow like a thick liquid.
Contact lens solution contains boric acid. The borate ions linked up with the glue, thickening the polymer - kind of like if you started tying the necklace sections together. They still flow, but not as well. This made the glue solution stiffer.
This cross-linking of glue molecules is what creates slime. If you put your pumpkin slime in a small bowl or muffin tin, it slowly acts like a liquid and will mold to the shape of the container. But when you apply pressure, it hardens up and feels more like a solid. What fun!
SHARE WITH US!
Let us know how your experiments turned out! Share your photos and results with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or send us an email to info@yellow-scope.com. We love getting your messages!
For more exciting experiments, check out our Yellow Scope science kits on the Shop tab of our website!
Chelsea Schuyler
Author