I love being creative! Crafting is an outlet for me and is one of my passions (other than science). Put those two together and boom- I’m in heaven! My daughter has always been into melty beads (just feel around the rug and you will find a whole colony of colored beads living deep in the depths of the rug or ask my vacuum cleaner that has become accustomed to eating them). One of the things I love to do is to combine science into her crafts, so we made a melty bead beaker and flask. It’s a very easy way to sneak in science and to have a casual learning experience outside of the classroom.
To make the science flask and beaker, you just need a square peg board (any size depending on how large you want them to be). I used a 15×15 peg square for the beaker and a 21×21 peg square for the flask. The pattern is pretty simple on both items, just use clear melty beads for the glass and whatever color you want for the liquid. You can also put clear beads in the liquid portion to represent bubbles. When you are done, just iron, and Voila! I say it like it’s that easy, but ironing is something that I still don’t have down. (It’s either a complete melted mush of beads, or slightly melted and when I pull it off the peg board, beads start to pop off.) One of these days I’ll figure out the perfect amount of heat and pressure. I’m going to stick a magnet on the back and use it as a magnet on my dry-erase board. This could also be a fun afterschool activity for your students or a fun camp activity. You can let your students use their imagination to see what science-themed model they can come up with!
ezpz-science.com 