Is it an atom? Is it a molecule? No, it's a polymer!

1. 

This picture above shows my slime (silly putty). So in science class, we started talking about polymers and how they work. We found out how many common items around us are all polymers and what they are made out of. That’s when we decided to do and experiment. Our experiment was to make Silly Putty, a type of polymer.

The first thing we did was research to make sure we understood what the instructions were and what we had to do. When we understood all of the words and procedures, we put all of our safety equipment on and got to work, organizing our lab to make sure we had everything we needed. We labeled everything and set out everything in order of what we would use first and what we would use last. We were given two beakers containing 4% borax and 50% glue. Then we were given 4 cups each and then two big beakers with nothing in them.

The second step was to follow the instructions. We had to get out the cup that was labeled one and put one spoon of glue and 3 of borax. It did not go so well, it was too wet and very liquid. The second attempt told us to do 2 spoons of each. That also did not go so right because it was very soggy and it looked like even with the same amount of glue, the borax would win the glue out. On our third attempt we had to do 3 spoons of glue and 1 of borax. It came out way better than the first two, however, it was still a little liquid. Our last attempt as the best one. We had to but 5 of glue and 1 of borax. It went perfectly.

The third step was to fix the other beakers using our knowledge. Then we joined them all together and made a huge silly putty, adding food coloring to make it colorful. It was still very liquid so we started adding a lot of glue and it helped a lot, because it seemed like the glue was keeping in together.

Overall, this experiment was very enjoyable and fun and I think I have learned a lot!

2. 

          As I have mentioned before, we had to fix the other recipes. But how? You might ask. There actually is a way and I found out by the other experiments. From all of my observations, I found out that the more glue, the better. But that was also part of my mistake. Since the formula that went well was the last one, 5:1, it was the one that we based our experiments on. 

     The first cup was the one we first started to fix. Since it used to be 1:3, we used the rule of every 5 spoons of glue, 1 of borax. So that changed to 15:3. When we added the glue, we saw it improve a lot. It became way less liquid and more of silly putty. However, we did not add any food coloring to them just to compare them. Then we started the second cup. The formula for the second cup was 2:2. Our strategy was to just do borax times 5, so this formula would turn into 10:2. When we added it, it did get better, but every time we stopped mixing it, it would become more liquid. Same thing for the first one. We thought it was odd, but we left that for last, when we finished all of the other ones. The third cup was easy to fix because we just had to add 2 more spoons of glue since the formula was 3:1. After all of them were fixed, we dumped them into a big contain. 

     After mixing and mixing, our silly putty was good but it was still full of junks and liquid. Our friend, Ana, had got it right and she told us that all we had to do was add glue. I was confused because she did not measure it correctly, and then I thought, why the more glue, the better? This is my hypothesis for this: If glue is related to more, than adding more glue the better, because the glue makes the silly putty stick together, drying all the liquids. 

3. 

 

A polymer is a molecular substance that is buildup of many parts. The word comes from a Greek word called polumerus because Polu- means many and meros - means a share, so if you combine those two you get many parts, which is what a polymer is made up of. You might think polymers are not common items, but they actually are! You can find them all over your house.

 For example, the first picture to the right is a picture of paper, which is made out of cellulose. Cellulose is a polymer because it is a chain of many glucose units.  Believe it or not, paper is made out of the same thing your blood cells eat. These glucose units are found in plant cell walls. The next picture shows a water bottle. It’s not the water that is in there, but the plastic itself. Plastic is a polymer, and it is very common. It is made up of many vinyl chloride units, also making a huge chin. Vinyl chloride are made up of chlorine atoms, which help keep the plastic together and in place. The third picture shows a fingernail, and yes, surprisingly it is a polymer. So is your hair and your skin. All of these three re made up of a protein called keratin. Keratin is a family of fibrous structural proteins.

Now do you see how many polymers there are around us? Everywhere you go, make sure you take a quick glance at plastic, your nails, and paper and try to find out what is really hidden behind them and how small the little chains are!