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Date: | Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:21:33 -0400 |
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Hi Mike
For the NSF funded "How People Make Things" exhibit at the Children's
Museum of Pittsburgh we had a similar challenge to make the idea of
state change concrete and tangible. Our focus was molding -- from wax
to plastic injection. The exhibit team created a "molding with wax"
exhibit that allowed kids to play with a solid to liquid state change,
or how the viscosity changed as it cooled. The exhibit team came up
with a pretty neat method allowing children to play with hot viscous
wax that cooled in a timely way into a solid. There are some plastic
additives candlemakers use that could give wax a more "clear"
glasslike look but be in a workable temperature range that cools
quickly. It fun to play with wax and molds.
Here's an overview of the project and pictures with formative eval
findings of this exhibit. http://informalscience.org/project/spotlight/hpmt
Good luck.
marti
. . . . . . . . . . .
Marti Louw, Research Faculty
UPCLOSE | University of Pittsburgh
Center for Learning in Out-of-School Environments
Learning Research and Development Center
3939 O'Hara Street • Pittsburgh, PA 15260
[tel] 412 624 7477 [skype] martilouw
MartiL {at} pitt {dot} edu
http://upclose.lrdc.pitt.edu
On Jul 22, 2010, at 11:07 AM, Mike Levad wrote:
> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology
> Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related
> institutions.
> *****************************************************************************
>
> Hi Everybody,
>
> I am hoping some of you might be able to help me out here. We are
> working
> on an exhibit about the glass industry and we have two phenomena
> that may be
> quite difficult to demonstrate.
>
>
> #1. Coefficent of Expansion. If the exterior of a piece of glass
> cools
> faster than the interior it can produce compressive forces strong
> enough to
> shatter the material. I did a great experiment with this in my buddy's
> kitchen when were in Jr. High. We nuked some marbles in his mom's
> 1970's
> vintage super powerful microwave and then we would drop them in ice-
> water
> causing them to shatter. This would not be terribly suitable for a
> museum
> exhibit for lots of reasons, consumables, small parts, unsafe
> temperatures,
> broken glass etc.
>
> #2 Viscosity. The viscosity of glass changes about 20 orders of
> magnitude
> from its water like state when it is poured to its solid state at
> room temp.
> Once again we are dealing with super high temps etc.
>
> Any ideas you might have would be much appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Mike
>
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For information about the Association of Science-Technology Centers and the Informal Science Education Network please visit www.astc.org.
Check out the latest case studies and reviews on ExhibitFiles at www.exhibitfiles.org.
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