A little experimentation

During our lab today in Bubble Blowing 101, we experimented with a new bubble recipe and some unconventional bubble blowers. Let me review what my students' findings were.

First, our new recipe was as follows:

1 1/2 cups water

1 cup liquid dish soap

1/4 cup light corn syrup

Note: This is only HALF of the original recipe. If we do it again, we will reduce the proportions by half again because it made quite a bit!

Items used as bubble blowers:

Spatula with holes

Slotted spoon

The claw-like spoon used for pasta that has a hole in it (this is the technical term)

Beaters from an electric mixer

Pipe cleaners

Twist ties

Drinking Straws

Here are some photographs taken during the experiment:

The Results:

The Recipe

The recipe worked well. It attracted some bees at first, due to the corn syrup, but they quickly flew away. It was very sticky, so make sure you have a hose or some other source of water near by for clean-up.

The Bubble Blowers

The best bubble blowers were the slotted spoon and twist ties. We connected several twist ties together to make a circle with a handle.

The worst bubble blowers were the beaters and the pipe cleaners. The beaters didn't make any bubbles at all, we think, because we couldn't completely submerge them. The pipe cleaners just soaked up the bubble solution.

The students were graded on participation. Leah unfortunately received a D for Distracted. She only participated for a short time and then left to play on the playground that is right next to the "lab". Noah earned a C+ for Concentration. He tried really hard to blow bubbles. He only succeeded a few times in that endeavor, but managed to get the messiest. Eli earned an A for Attentive. He stayed with me the whole time and was really interested in the experiment. He helped me perfect the twist tie bubble blower and made sure all the bubbles were popped in a Ninja-like fashion. He was the only one who was sad when it was time to clean up.

Eli's grade, however, had to be lowered to a B for Bummer. When he was questioned later by the Professor's spouse, Eli claimed to have not enjoyed the experiment at all.

There is a chance for each of them to earn extra credit to help bring up their averages. Perhaps a few extra chores tonight will give them the additional percentage points they need.