help with science fair

[annastasia76]

my daughter wants to make soap for her 5th grade science fair project. I will be there the whole time and doing most of the actually soap making work, I don't want her to get hurt, but I am wondering if anybody can point me to a website that will give her the best research info, preferably something that an 11 year old will understand

 

[jennikate]

check out the tutorials sticky at top of page also teachsoap.com has some easy basic directions. I hope this helps.

 

[ToniD]

http://www.canis-art.com/soaping.htm

This is cute and helpful. I could not find the other one I was thinking of. It had an animated picture of molecules of lye and oils becoming soap and glycerin


She could get one of those molecule kits and show the change.

Talk about how soap works once it is made.

Wow, cool project.

 

[Microdot]

I would suggest she visit this site...

http://www.millersoap.com/

Dotty

 

[kelleyaynn]

This isn't going to be a popular response, but as I'm a former science teacher turned fifth grade teacher (where I teach science to all of our fifth graders), I felt I had to chime in.

As a fifth grade teacher I would not want my students to do something where the parent has to do most of the work for safety reasons. Even if she does the research, she should get to do the fun part as well. It wasn't clear from your post if the soap would be made at home or at the fair, but making it at the fair wouldn't be safe.

From the science teacher perspective, fifth graders are too young and haven't had the background or experience to understand what is happening chemically - the saponification of fats from the NaOH. This would be a cool high school project, but I think it is too complicated for fifth grade. Even with the animated explanations, saponification is too abstract for fifth graders on several levels. They really wouldn't truly understand what is happening. Having taught middle school for years, I can attest to the fact that at that age they can talk about molecules and atoms, but they don't really "get" what they are. Given the right background, fifth graders could understand that it is a chemical reaction where the ingredients are turning into something else, but that's about it.

Sorry to be negative, as I would rather cheer this one on.

 

[Healinya]

I searched for ten minutes trying to find you the cute explaniation with the wolves and the sheep... didn't notice toni posted it already

I agree it may go over some kids' heads... certainly not all.. I loved this stuff when I was a kid.

 

[kelleyaynn]

[quote="Healinya"

I agree it may go over some kids' heads... certainly not all.. I loved this stuff when I was a kid.[/quote]

I agree that there would certainly be kids who find the information very interesting (I would have been one of them), and would love it, and learn it. But the actual chemistry of it would go over the kids heads, simply because they haven't had the basic chemistry necessary to truly understand saponification. They would be able to parrot back what happened (and think it is neat), but real conceptual understanding wouldn't be there.

That said, there is certainly a way for students that age to describe that there are chemical changes taking place, what that means, and how cool it is for the real-life application of a science concept. It depends upon how in-depth the conceptual understanding is expected to be. The main thing that bothers me as a teacher is the fact that the student wouldn't be able to actually make the soap because of the dangers. She should be able to do the entire project herself, with just parental supervision. This is science, and the kids should be DOING science themselves.

But let me get off my soapbox (pun intended). I can get very intense when discussing philosophy and methodology of teaching science - it's what I do. Perhaps there is a way for this project to be tweaked so that the student can really participate? For example, if the soap is being made at home, could mom make the lye solution and let the daughter pour it in an stir the soap? I have fifth graders who I would trust to do that, and others I wouldn't. The mom would have to decide what she is comfortable with her daughter doing. Could she do a melt and pour project? Oh, and I just thought of another idea that might be a compromise - could she video her mom making the soap (or that parts that she can't do, while her mom videos that parts she can), while she narrates? I just really feel the daughter needs to be DOING the demonstration in some way.

 

[Tabitha]

Science fair projects are based aroung a question & a hypothesis. I was wondering what those would be.

 

[annastasia76]

what I meant when I would be doing it was that I would be doing the lye solution. I was going to have her stir it but since we don't have a stick blender we will be taking turns doing the stirring because it will take forever.

is it safe enough for her to combine the lye with the oils??

 

[annastasia76]

OMGosh, the one with the bunnies and wolves is adorable, I will show it to her as soon as she gets home.

as for the technical parts of soap making. The school does not really expect the kids to learn that stuff, not yet at least. what they want to see is trial and error, coming up with an idea and trying it out in several different ways to see what happens and what works. for my daughter we will try different super fating amounts and see what happens. My son is going to make cookies for his project. he will be trying different amounts of baking soda with different batches (all the rest of the ingredients the same) and see what the effect of that will be.