Cool experiments with Silly Putty!
Yes, Silly Putty. There is a really cool, new colour changing Silly Putty that turns blue-purple when cold and pink when warm. Perfect for experiments with temperature!
After playing with this cool goo in the car, my daughter was wondering what else could we do with it. I said, “well let’s see what happens when you put it on a glass of ice water.”
I took lots of pictures (set on Flickr) and you can see what is going on. Now for the science fun here. Look at the picture above. The Silly Putty is stretched very, very thin. It turned purple (yes, I know it’s blue in the picture) almost right away. I asked my daughter why she thought that happened … because it’s thinner and the putty can get colder faster. Bingo!
She also noted that if there was an air bubble between the glass and part of the putty, it stayed pink longer (or didn’t change). Two things going on here. One is of course because the Silly Putty wasn’t touching the glass the cold couldn’t transfer directly. The second is that the air was insulating the putty as well (a little more complex for an 8 yr old … but we’ll get to that one when making a house for an ice cube!).
All of this play, which kept her occupied for a while, teaches about thermodynamics, essentially the science of temperature, pressure, and volume. BTW, I’m not going to shy away from scientific terms, but I will explain them and link to Wikipedia for more information.
So grab some Silly Putty, the colour changing kind, and see what fun you can have with it. I suggest trying windows, doors, maybe even the hood of your car. Heck even the Sun. Try putting a cold and a hot glass on different blobs and see what happens.
Believe me … it’s fun for everyone!
Tags: Silly Putty, thermodynamics
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