Soapy Cloud Sculptures

Looking for some good clean fun?  This one is for you.  Today, we will create super cool clouds out of Ivory Soap.  This lesson explores buoyancy and how heat affects other objects.

Lab Materials:

§  Ivory Soap (bar form)

§  Microwavable Plate

§  Microwave

§  Knife (for parent use only)

§  Bowl of Water

First, have your scientist describe what the soap feels like.  Is it smooth?  Can you squish it?  If we put the soap in water, will it float or sink?

Now, let’s test their hypothesis.  Place the unwrapped bar of soap in a bowl of water.  It should float.  Part of Ivory’s manufacturing process infuses the soap has more air than other bar soaps.

Next, dry off and quarter the soap into four parts. Don’t worry if some of it crumbles.  Allow the scientist arrange the pieces on the plate any way they wish as long as they are touching.

Lastly, pop the plate in the microwave and turn it on for 3 minutes.  Now normally I would recommend this, but watch what’s going on in the microwave.  It should start growing and bubbling right before your eyes.  You can take it out anytime between 90 seconds and the ding.  By 2 minutes, ours looked like this and was ready to be taken out:

Cool, right?

So, what caused the soap to bubble and grow in the microwave?  Think about popcorn.  The center of an un-popped kernel of popcorn is air and a little bit of water.  When you microwave the kernel the water and air interact and try to escape causing the kernel to POP into fluffy goodness.   Ivory, with its extra air reacts the same way:  when excited (heated by microwave) the air pockets POP into a fluffy soap sculptures (not yummy).

****Note to parents:  The soap is still soap.  It will clean.  We put ours in the shower and break pieces off as needed*****