Anna Savage
Chemistry 11
24 Oct. 2000

Outreach Teaching Project with Mr. Wallace’s Sixth Grade Class from Fort River School
Partners: Anna Savage and Elizabeth Hawkins
Group: Approximately 20 students ages 11-12
Concepts: Capillary action and surface tension of water through two experiments, ink chromatography and “silver egg” demonstration.

Elizabeth Hawkins and I presented two experiments dealing with the properties of liquids (specifically water), including surface tension and capillary action. Our first experiment was the creation of “silver eggs” by coating a raw egg with soot and placing it in a beaker of water, which repelled the carbon due to surface tension and gave the egg a silver tinge when observed through the water. This experiment was developed from several website demos off of the Yahoo search engine. Our second experiment demonstrated capillary action through dye chromatography. Dye-coated candy was placed on filter paper and soaked with water until the colors began to spread with the water based on the mass of the particles in the dye. This experiment was based on descriptions of chromatography and capillary action form the Chemistry textbook.

In practice, neither of these experiments went as planned. The sixth grade class was extremely attentive and enthusiastic in trying to understand the experiments, and they put up with all of our problems without complaint. However, the silver egg experiment was almost a complete failure in that raw eggs tend to cook and then explode when placed over a flame, rather than simply becoming coated with soot. The children found this very funny (which it was) and I appreciated their enthusiasm in trying to answer our questions about the science behind what should have happened, since the actual experiment could not be performed. The second experiment worked perfectly once it was switched to pen-ink rather than candy chromatography, as the candy we chose did not work at all. As with the first experiment the class was happy to participate in discussion of capillary action and atomic mass, and I was truly impressed with their knowledge of chemistry as compared to my own when I was in sixth grade. Overall, the experience was a lot of fun despite some hassles, and it was the positive attitude of the class that made the teaching experience so satisfying. I had not previously thought about teaching science as a career but this was such a positive experience that it has definitely made me more open to the possibility.

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