Activity Overview
Create a beautiful crystalized snowflake with this fun and easy science experiment! Budding scientists will enjoy learning about crystal formation and be the marvel of their audience when they perform it.
You can dissolve more borax to the boiling water than you can if you were adding it to cold water because warmer water molecules move around faster and are more spread apart, allowing more room for the borax crystals to dissolve. When the solution cools, the water molecules move closer together and it can't hold as much of the borax solution causing beautiful crystals to form when they fall out of the solution.
Materials Needed
- String
- Wide mouth jar
- White pipe cleaners
- Boiling water (adult assistance required)
- Borax laundry booster
- A pencil or chopstick
How to Do it
Take a white pipe cleaner and cut it into three sections of equal size. Twist these sections together in the center so that you now have a shape that looks something like a star. Make sure the points of your shape are even by trimming them to the same length.
Take the top of one of the pipe cleaners and attach a piece of string to it.
Secure the opposite end of the string to the chop stick or pencil. You will use this to hang your completed snowflake.
Have an adult assist you with adding boiling water to the jar..
Add three tablespoons of borax laundry booster for each cup of water, adding one tablespoon at a time.
Stir until the mixture is dissolved but don’t worry if some of the borax settles at the base of the jar.
Put the pipe cleaner star into the jar so that the small wooden rod or pencil is resting on the edge of the jar and the snowflake is sitting freely in the borax solution.
- Leave the snowflake overnight and when you return in the morning you will find the snowflake covered in crystals. Enjoy the beautiful crystal snowflakes that are formed.
