Special Science Teleclass: Chemistry & Chemical Engineering

Monday August 15, 2016
This is a recording of a recent live teleclass I did with thousands of kids from all over the world. I've included it here so you can participate and learn, too!

We’re going to be mixing up dinosaur toothpaste, doing experiments with catalysts, discovering the 5 states of matter, and building your own chemistry lab station as we cover chemical kinetics, phase shifts, the states of matter, atoms, molecules, elements, chemical reactions, and much more. We’re also going to turn liquid polymers into glowing putty so you can amaze your friends when it totally glows in the dark. AND make liquids freeze by heating them up (no kidding) using a scientific principle called supercooling,

Materials:
  • Chemistry Worksheet
  • Aluminum pie plate
  • Bowl
  • Clear glue or white glue
  • Disposable cups
  • Goggles & gloves
  • Hydrogen peroxide
  • OPTIONAL: Instant reusable hand warmer (containing sodium acetate )
  • Liquid soap
  • Popsicle sticks
  • Scissors or pliers
  • Sodium tetraborate (also called “Borax”)
  • Water bottle
  • Yeast
  • Yellow highlighter
  • Optional: If you want to see your experiments glow in the dark, you'll need a fluorescent UV black light (about $10 from the pet store - look in cleaning supplies under "Urine-Off" for a fluorescent UV light). UV flashlights and UV LEDs will not work.
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Bicarbonate Buffer

Wednesday January 21, 2015

This experiment is for advanced students. All chemical reactions are equilibrium reactions. This experiment is really cool because you’re going to watch how a chemical reaction resists a pH change.


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Hydrolysis

Wednesday January 21, 2015

This experiment is for advanced students. Hydrolysis is a chemical reaction that involves breaking a molecular bond using water. In chemistry, there are three different types of hydrolysis: sat hydrolysis, acid hydrolysis, and base hydrolysis. In nature, living organisms survive by making their energy from processing food. The energy converted from food is stored in ATP molecules. To release the energy stored in food, a phosphate group breaks off an ATP molecule (and becomes ADP) using hydrolysis and releases energy from the bonds.


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Redox Reaction

Wednesday January 21, 2015

This experiment is for advanced students. We’re going to look at the strength of redox reactions using copper, zinc, and acids.


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Balancing Chemical Equations

Friday September 26, 2014

Chemistry is all about studying chemical reactions and the combinations of elements and molecules that combine to give new stuff.  Chemical reactions can be written down as a balanced equation that shows how much of each molecule and compound are needed for that particular reaction. Here’s how you do it:


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Temperature and Le Chatelier’s Principle

Sunday September 14, 2014

If you’re into magic shows, this is a good one to perform for an audience, because the solution goes from purple to pink to green to blue and back again!


Le Chatelier’s principle states that when the temperature is raised, an equilibrium will shift away from the side that contains energy. When temperature is lowered, the reaction shifts toward the side that contains the energy. That’s a little hard to understand, so that’s why there’s a really cool experiment that will show you exactly what we see happening with this principle.


Remember that exothermic reactions are chemical reactions that give off energy. In this experiment, this reaction is exothermic, which is going to be an important key in predicting which way the system will balance itself as it gets subjected to temperature changes.


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Effect of Temperature on Solubility

Saturday September 6, 2014

We’re going to do an experiment where it will look like we can boil soda on command… but the truth is, it’s not really boiling in the first place! If you drink soda, save one for doing this experiment. Otherwise, get one that’s “diet” (without the sugar, it’s a lot easier to clean up).


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Measuring the Size of a Molecule

Saturday September 6, 2014

Molecules are the building blocks of matter.


You’ve probably heard that before, right? But that does it mean? What does a molecule look like? How big are they?


While you technically can measure the size of a molecule, despite the fact it’s usually too small to do even with a regular microscope, what you can’t do is see an image of the molecule itself. The reason has to do with the limits of nature and wavelengths of light, not because our technology isn’t there yet, or we’re not smart enough to figure it out. Scientists have to get creative about the ways they do about measuring something that isn’t possible to see with the eyes.


Here’s a cool experiment you can do that will approximate the size of a molecule. Here’s what you need:


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Basic Chemistry Safety Information

Monday November 1, 2010

Chemical Data & Safe Handling Information Sheet

What do I really need to know first? First of all, the chemicals in this set should be stored out of reach of pets and children. Grab the chemicals right now and stuff them in a safe place where accidents can’t happen. Do this NOW!


If you haven’t already done so, make sure to watch the introductory video for the Intermediate Chemistry and Advanced Chemistry lessons. They contain important information about the chemicals and lab equipment you’ll be using. When you’re done storing your chemicals out of reach, watch this video:


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Making Litmus Solution and Paper

Sunday October 31, 2010

You can go your whole life without paying any attention to the chemistry behind acids and bases. But you use acids and bases all the time! They are all around you. We identify acids and bases by measuring their pH.


Every liquid has a pH. If you pay particular attention to this lab, you will even be able to identify most acids and bases and understand why they do what they do. Acids range from very strong to very weak. The strongest acids will dissolve steel. The weakest acids are in your drink box. The strongest bases behave similarly. They can burn your skin or you can wash your hands with them.


Acid rain is one aspect of low pH that you can see every day if you look for it. This is a strange name, isn’t it? We get rained on all the time. If people were dissolving, if the rain made their skin smoke and burn, you’d think it would make headlines, wouldn’t you? The truth is acid rain is too weak to harm us except in very rare and localized conditions. But it’s hard on limestone buildings.


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Energy from Sugar

Sunday October 31, 2010

This experiment is for advanced students.


Purple and white colors, making the whitewash that Tom Sawyer used, and produce an exothermic chemical reaction…..does it get any better?


Limewater is one of the compounds we work with in this experiment. Limewater was used in the old days of America. We’re talking about the 80’s…..the 1880’s.


Traveling medicine shows sold what was called “patent medicines”. These usually had no medicinal properties at all. The man in charge, the salesman of the operation, was called a “huckster”. He would have the one of the people gathered around to listen to him blow into limewater. Their exhaled breath contains carbon dioxide, and the lime water turned cloudy, just like in our experiment.


The man would hold up the glass with the cloudy limewater in it and pour in some of his fantastic remedy. As long as the “medicine” was acidic, it would turn the cloudy limewater clear. This was proof that the remedy would cure whatever ailed the person.


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Getting Air from Water

Sunday October 31, 2010

This experiment is for advanced students. This is a repeat of the experiment: Can Fish Drown? but now we’re going to do this experiment again with your new chemistry glassware.


The aquarium looked normal in every way, except for the fish. They were breathing very fast and sinking head first to the bottom of the tank. They would sink a few inches, then jerk into proper movement again.


The student had to figure out what was wrong. He had set up the aquarium as an ongoing science project, and it was his responsibility to maintain the fish tank. His grade depended on it.


He went to his mom for help. She looked over the setup. “Have you tested the water?”


A quizzical look on his face, the boy said, “Everything is normal nitrates, nitrites, hardness, alkalinity, and pH. The pH was a little acidic, but not outside the proper range.”


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Working with Cataylsts

Sunday October 31, 2010

This experiment is for advanced students.


Don’t put this in your car….yet. Hydrogen generation, capture, and combustion are big deals right now. The next phase of transportation, and a move away from fossil fuels in not found in electric cars. Electric cars are waiting until hydrogen fuel cell vehicles become practical. It can be done and is being done.


Cars being powered by hydrogen are here, but not on the market yet. Engineers and chemists are always finding new ways to improve the chemical reaction that produces hydrogen and making the vehicles more efficiently use the fuel. Hydrogen fuel is not just easy to make, it is inexpensive, and the “exhaust” is water.


We will generate hydrogen in this lab. We will also see how combustible it is. Just let your imagination wander….just a bit and you will see noiseless cars and trucks zipping along the streets and interstates, carrying people and cargo. The Indianapolis 500 wouldn’t be quite the same, though. “And there they go, roaring, I mean quietly entering turn two…”


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Hydrogen Peroxide

Sunday October 31, 2010

This experiment is for advanced students.


In industry, hydrogen peroxide is used in paper making to bleach the pulp before they form it into paper. Biologists, when preparing bones for display, use peroxide to whiten the bones.


At home, 3% peroxide combined with ammonium hydroxide is used to give dark-haired people their desired blonde moment. Peroxide is also used on wounds to clean them and remove dead tissue. Peroxide slows the flow from small blood vessels and oozing in wounds as well.


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Generating Oxygen

Sunday October 31, 2010

This experiment is for advanced students.


This time we’re going to use a lot of equipment… really break out all the chemistry stuff. We’ll need all this stuff to generate oxygen with potassium permanganate (KMNO4). We will work with this toxic chemical and we will be careful…won’t we?


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Detonating Bubbles

Sunday October 31, 2010

This experiment is for advanced students.


Zinc (Zn), is a metal and it is found as element #30 on the periodic table. We need a little zinc to keep our bodies balanced, but too much is very dangerous.


Zinc is just like the common, everyday substance that we all know as di-hydrogen monoxide (which is the chemical name for water). We need water to survive, but too much will kill us.


DHMO: In chemistry, “Di” equals the number 2; hydrogen is H; mono equals the number one; and oxide is derived from oxygen, and its symbol is O. Put these together and you have Di-hydrogen (H2), and mono oxygen (O). Put them together, what do you have? Water!


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Desalination

Sunday October 31, 2010

This experiment is for advanced students.


Lewis and Clark did this same experiment when they reached the Oregon coast in 1805. Men from the expedition traveled fifteen miles south of the fort they had built at the mouth of the Columbia River to where Seaside, Oregon now thrives.


In 1805, however, it was just men from the fort and Indians. They built an oven of rocks. For six weeks, they processed 1,400 gallons of seawater, boiling the water off to gain 28 gallons of salt.


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Cold Light

Sunday October 31, 2010

This experiment is for advanced students.


Glo-sticks! Parents hang them from their trick or treaters, backpackers read with them light late at night in a tent. Glo-sticks work on the principle of chemiluminescence.  Chemiluminescence is defined as emitting light without heat as the result of a chemical reaction.


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Carbon Dioxide

Sunday October 31, 2010

This experiment is for advanced students. This lab builds on concepts from the previous carbon dioxide lab.


Limewater….carbon dioxide…indicators. We don’t know too much about these things. Sure, we know a little. Carbon dioxide is exhaled by us and plants need it to grow. Burning fossil fuels produces carbon dioxide.


Indicators…something we observe that confirms to us that something specific is happening. Lime water turns cloudy and forms a precipitate in the presence of carbon dioxide. Blue litmus paper turns red in the presence of an acid. The dog barking at the door and dancing around indicates that you better let the dog out, and quick, to avoid….a pet spill?


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Zinc Dust

Sunday October 31, 2010

This experiment is for advanced students.


Who gets to burn something today? YOU get to burn something today!


You will be working with Zinc (Zn). Other labs in this kit allow us to burn metal, but there is a bit of a twist this time. We will be burning a powder.


Why a powder instead of a solid ribbon or foil as in the other labs?  Have you heard of surface area being a factor in a chemical reaction? The more surface area there is to burn, the more dramatic the chemical change. So, with this fact in mind, a powder should burn faster or be more likely to burn than a large solid.


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Magnesium Battery

Sunday October 31, 2010

Magnesium is one of the most common elements in the Earth’s crust. This alkaline earth metal is silvery white, and soft. As you perform this lab, think about why magnesium is used in emergency flares and fireworks. Farmers use it in fertilizers, pharmacists use it in laxatives and antacids, and engineers mix it with aluminum to create the BMW N52 6-cylinder magnesium engine block. Photographers used to use magnesium powder in the camera’s flash before xenon bulbs were available.


Most folks, however, equate magnesium with a burning white flame. Magnesium fires burn too hot to be extinguished using water, so most firefighters use sand or graphite.


We’re going to learn how to (safely) ignite a piece of magnesium in the first experiment, and next how to get energy from it by using it in a battery in the second experiment. Are you ready?


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Burning Sulfur

Sunday October 31, 2010

This experiment is for advanced students.


Brimstone is another name for sulfur, and if you’ve ever smelled it burn…..whoa….I’m telling you ….you will see for yourself in this lab. It is quite a smell, for sure. Sulfur is element #6 on the periodic table. Sulfur is used in fertilizer, black powder, matches, and insecticides. In pioneer times sulfur was put into patent medicines and used as a laxative.


To further the evil reputation of sulfur, or brimstone, when sulfur is burned in a coal fired power plant, sulfur dioxide is produced. The sulfur is spewed into the air, where it is reacts with moisture in the air to form sulfuric acid. The clouds get full and need to let go of this sulfuric acid. Down comes the acid rain to wreak havoc on the masonry and plant life below.


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Making Copper

Sunday October 31, 2010

In this lab, we’re going to investigate the wonders of electrochemistry. Electrochemistry became a new branch of chemistry in 1832, founded by Michael Faraday. Michael Faraday is considered the “father of electrochemistry”. The knowledge gained from his work has filtered down to this lab. YOU will be like Michael Faraday. I imagined he would have been overjoyed to do this lab and see the results. You are soooo lucky to be able to take an active part in this experiment. Here’s what you’re going to do…


You will be “creating” metallic copper from a solution of copper sulfate and water, and depositing it on a negative electrode. Copper is one of our more interesting elements. Copper is a metal, and element 29 on your periodic table. It conducts heat and electricity very well.


Many things around you are made of copper. Copper wire is used in electrical wiring. It has been used for centuries in the form of pipes to distribute water and other fluids in homes and in industry. The Statue of Liberty is a wonderful example of how beautiful 180,000 pounds of copper can be. Yes, it is made of copper, and no, it doesn’t look like a penny…..on the surface. The green color is copper oxide, which forms on the surface of copper exposed to air and water. The oxide is formed on the surface and does not attack the bulk of the copper. You could say that copper oxide protects the copper.


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Making Chlorine

Sunday October 31, 2010

If we don’t have salt, we die. It’s that simple. The chemical formula for salt is NaCl. Broken down, we have Na (sodium) and Cl (chlorine). Either one of these can be fatal in sufficient quantities. When chemically combined, these two deadly elements become table salt. What once could kill now keeps us alive. Isn’t chemistry awesome?


Chlorine, element 17, is called a halogen as are all the elements in the 17th row. All halogens have similar chemical properties. They are highly reactive nonmetals, and react easily with most metals. Sodium is a metal, and is bonded with sodium in the table salt used in this lab. Besides being found in salt, chlorine has many uses in our world such as killing bacteria in our water, making plastic, cleaning products, and the list goes on. A very useful chemical, and is among the top ten chemicals produced in the United States. Ever since its discovery in 1774, chlorine has been very useful. It is found in nature in sodium chloride, but in very small concentrations. Seawater, the most abundant source of chlorine, has a concentration of only 19g of chlorine per liter.


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Electrochemistry

Sunday October 31, 2010

Electricity. Chemistry. Nothing in common, have nothing to do with each other. Wrong! Electrochemistry has been a fact since 1774. Once electricity was applied to particular solutions, changes occurred that scientists of the time did not expect.


In this lab, we will discover some of the same things that Farraday found over 300 years ago. We will be there as things tear apart, particles rush about, and the power of attraction is very strong. We’re not talking about dancing, we’re talking about something much more important and interesting….we’re talking about ELECTROCHEMISTRY!


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Ammonia Experiments

Sunday October 31, 2010

Ammonia has been used by doctors, farmers, chemists, alchemists, weightlifters, and our families since Roman times. Doctors revive unconscious patients, farmers use it in fertilizer, alchemists tried to use it to make gold, weightlifters sniff it into their lungs to invigorate their respiratory system and clear their heads prior to lifting tremendous loads. At home, ammonia is used to clean up the ketchup you spilled on the floor and never cleaned up.


The ammonia molecule (NH3) is a colorless gas with a strong odor – it’s the smell of freshly cleaned floors and windows. Mom is not cleaning with straight ammonia (it’s gas at room temperature because it boils at -28oF, so the stuff she cleans with is actually ammonium hydroxide, a solution of ammonia and water).  Ammonia is found when plans and animals decompose, and it’s also in rainwater, volcanoes, your kidneys (to neutralize excess acid), in the ocean, some fertilizers, in  Jupiter’s lower cloud decks, and trace amounts are found in our own atmosphere (it’s lighter than air).


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Acids and Bases

Sunday October 31, 2010

This experiment is for advanced students.


ACID!!! The word causes fear to creep in and get our attention.


BASIC!!! The word causes nothing to stir in most of us.


The truth is, a strong acid (pH 0-1) is dangerous, but a strong basic (pH 13-14) is just as dangerous. In this lab, we will get comfortable with the basics of bases and the acidity of acids along with how you can use both and tell the difference between them.


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Making Sodium Hydroxide

Sunday October 31, 2010

This experiment is for advanced students.


Ever use soap? Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) is the main component in lye soap. NaOH is mixed with some type of fat (vegetable, pig, cow, etc).  Scent can be added for the ‘pretty’ factor and pumice or sand can be added for the manly “You’re coming off my hands and I’ll take no guff” factor. Lots of people still make their own soap and they enjoy doing it.


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Potassium Permanganate

Sunday October 31, 2010

This experiment is for advanced students.


Potassium permanganate (KMnO4) in water turns an intense, deep, purple. It is important in the film industry for aging props and clothing to make them look much older than they are.


Also, artists use it in bone carving. People who carve antlers and bone use KMnO4 to darken the surface of the bone to make it look aged. They make the carving, soak it in potassium permanganate, then carve more, and repeat. The end result is a carving that has a light golden brown color. More dipping will darken the carving even more.


Potassium permanganate is going to undergo a chemical change with this activity. In this experiment, we will be able to witness several indicators of chemical change. Color changes, bubbles from gas generation, temperature change, and color disappearance are all indicators of chemical changes.


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Potassium Hexacynoferrate (Reagant)

Sunday October 31, 2010

This experiment is for advanced students.


How do you know if your brother is stealing your candy? Unwrap a wrapped hard candy that he likes a lot. Roll the candy around in the powdered food dye that matches the candy. (Push the powder into the candy so it “disappears”.) Re-wrap the candy. Set the candy in the place where it usually disappears from. Wait ten minutes after the candy disappears. Find your brother. He will be sporting a new color on his hands and mouth. Dye is hard to remove. It will have to be worn every day at school until it fades away as the skin cells slough off. The dye he now wears is in indicator that he has been taking your candy.


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Iron Sparklers

Sunday October 31, 2010

This experiment is for advanced students.


Sparks flying off in all directions…that’s fun. In this lab, we will show how easy it is to produce those shooting sparks. In a sparkler you buy at the store, the filings used are either iron or aluminum.


The filings are placed in a mixture that, when dry, adheres to the metal rod or stick that is used in making the sparkler. The different colors are created by adding different powdered chemicals to the mixture before it dries. When they burn, we get red, blue, white, and green.


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Iodine

Sunday October 31, 2010

This experiment is for advanced students.


In gas form, element #59 is deadly. However, when iodine is in  liquid form, it helps heal cuts and scrapes. The iodine molecule occurs in pairs, not as a single atom (many halogens do this, and it’s called a diatomic molecule). It’s hard to find iodine in nature, though it’s essential for staying healthy… too little iodine in the body takes a heavy toll on how well the brain operates.


A chunk of iodine is blackish-blue, and will sublimate (go from a solid straight to a gas, as seen in the photo here).  Iodine is the heaviest element needed by living things. Iodized salt is sodium chloride fortified with iodine to prevent people from not getting enough iodine in their daily diets.


Iodine is found in seaweed (kelp) and seafood as well as vegetables that are grown in dirt that has high iodine levels. People that live inland and do not eat fish often have lower iodine levels than their coastal, fish-eating neighbors. The trick is not to get too much or too little iodine in your diet, because the symptoms of deficiency and excess levels are quite similar.


Starch (like cornstarch) are used as an indicator for detecting iodine in chemistry experiments. When combined with iodine, starch forms a blue-black color in the solution. We’re going to do this and many other activities in this lab, because this experiment is actually several labs rolled into one. First, we have to make iodine, store it, and then we get to use it in several experiments. Are you ready?


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How to Get Hydrogen from Zinc

Sunday October 31, 2010

This experiment is for advanced students.


Zinc and Hydrogen are important elements for all of us. Zinc (Zn) metal is element #30 on the periodic table. Lack of zinc in our diets will delay growth of our bodies and can kill.


Hydrogen gas (H) is element #1 on the periodic table. Hydrogen was discovered in the 1500s. In a pure state, hydrogen combustion (in small quantities) is interesting. In large amounts, mixed with oxygen, the explosion can be devastating.


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Hydrogen Bromide

Sunday October 31, 2010

WARNING!! THIS EXPERIMENT IS PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS!! (No kidding.) This experiment is for advanced students.


We’ve created a video that shows you how to safely do this experiment, although if you’re nervous about doing this one, just watch the video and skip the actual experiment.


Bromine is a particularly nasty chemical, so be sure to very carefully follow the steps we’ve outlined in the video. You MUST do this experiment outdoors. We’ll be making a tiny amount to show how the chemical reactions involving bromine work.


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Hydrogen Chlorine Gas

Sunday October 31, 2010

WARNING!! THIS EXPERIMENT IS PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS!! (No kidding.) This experiment is for advanced students.


We’ve created a video that shows you how to safely do this experiment, although if you’re nervous about doing this one, just watch the video and skip the actual experiment.


The gas you generate with this experiment is lethal in large doses, so you MUST do this experiment outdoors.  We’ll be making a tiny amount to show how the chemical reactions of chlorine and hydrogen work.


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Colored Campfires and Rainbows

Wednesday June 30, 2010

Always have a FIRE EXTINGUISHER and ADULT HELP handy when performing fire experiments. NO EXCEPTIONS.

This video will show you how to transform the color of your flames. For a campfire, simply sprinkle the solids into your flames (make sure they are ground into a fine powder first) and you’ll see a color change. DO NOT do this experiment inside your house – the fumes given off by the chemicals are not something you want in your home!


One of the tricks to fire safety is to limit your fuel. The three elements you need for a flame are: oxygen, spark, and fuel.  To extinguish your flames, you’ll have to either wait for the fuel to run out or smother the flames to cut off the oxygen. When you limit your fuel, you add an extra level of safety to your activities and a higher rate of success to your eyebrows.


Here’s what we’re going to do: first, make your spectrometer: you can make the simple spectrometer or the more-advanced calibrated spectrometer. Next, get your chemicals together and build your campfire. Finally, use your spectrometer to view your flames.


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Calibrated Spectrometer

Wednesday June 30, 2010

Ever play with a prism? When sunlight strikes the prism, it gets split into a rainbow of colors. Prisms un-mix the light into its different wavelengths (which you see as different colors). Diffraction gratings are tiny prisms stacked together.

When light passes through a diffraction grating, it splits (diffracts) the light into several beams traveling at different directions. If you’ve ever seen the ‘iridescence’ of a soap bubble, an insect shell, or on a pearl, you’ve seen nature’s diffraction gratings.

Scientist use these things to split incoming light so they can figure out what fuels a distant star is burning. When hydrogen burns, it gives off light, but not in all the colors of the rainbow, only very specific colors in red and blue. It’s like hydrogen’s own personal fingerprint, or light signature.

While this spectrometer isn't powerful enough to split starlight, it's perfect for using with the lights in your house, and even with an outdoor campfire.  Next time you're out on the town after dark, bring this with you to peek different types of lights - you'll be amazed how different they really are. You can use this spectrometer with your Colored Campfire Experiment also.

SPECIAL NOTE: This instrument is NOT for looking at the sun. Do NOT look directly at the sun. But you can point the tube at a sheet of paper that has the the sun’s reflected light on it.

Here's what you do:

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Going Further with Advanced Chemistry

Monday May 31, 2010

This experiment is for advanced students.


One of my best teaching tools for science developed from a brain freeze one afternoon in class. I went to the board to draw the chlorophyll wheel and drew a complete blank.


“Let’s say I forgot how to draw the wheel.” I turned to the class, marker in hand, and scanned the room. Puzzled faces, the blank faces I expected, but, what was that? A few smiles scattered about the room.


As I pulled out and some volunteered info, we got into that wheel. They also found that it was easier to know what to do next than to have me tell them to find it in their book and be prepared…I was coming back to them. Students frantically finding the wheel in their biology books so they were armed when I came to them.


It was a great experience, and my lectures were a lot more fun and interactive from then on.


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Electrolysis

Saturday October 10, 2009

This experiment is just for advanced students. If you guessed that this has to do with electricity and chemistry, you’re right! But you might wonder how they work together. Back in 1800, William Nicholson and Johann Ritter were the first ones to split water into hydrogen and oxygen using electrolysis. (Soon afterward, Ritter went on to figure out electroplating.) They added energy in the form of an electric current into a cup of water and captured the bubbles forming into two separate cups, one for hydrogen and other for oxygen.

This experiment is not an easy one, so feel free to skip it if you need to. You don’t need to do this to get the concepts of this lesson but it’s such a neat and classical experiment (my students love it) so you can give it a try if you want to. The reason I like this is because what you are really doing in this experiment is ripping molecules apart and then later crashing them back together.

Have fun and please follow the directions carefully. This could be dangerous if you’re not careful. The image shown here is using graphite from two pencils sharpened on both ends, but the instructions below use wire.  Feel free to try both to see which types of electrodes provide the best results.

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