Slime Science is Perfect for Meeting NGSS

September 04, 2019

Slime Science is Perfect for Meeting NGSS

There is so much you can do with slime. Remember to spice up your slime science. Don’t just make the slime and play with it. Take it up a notch to meet the standards and help expand your students' science skills.

Slime is lots of fun. The science of slime makes it a perfect classroom activity to meet NGSS. We have to do more than just mix slime together. We need to take slime science up a notch.

Here is how you can show the administration that your slime unit is meeting the standards.

1. Meets the Science and Engineering Practices: Students can record observations of different types of slime. They can investigate and record data about the viscosity of slime. Engage in arguments from evidence about why their slime is the best or how adding more borax affects the slime.

2. Second Grade Matter and its Interactions Unit: Students can plan and conduct an investigation to describe and classify different kinds of slime by their' observable properties. (2-PS1-1) Slime acts like a liquid and a solid, so it makes it a perfect state of matter activity. Compare different recipes of slime. Students then analyze the data to see which slime is best suited for an intended purpose. Slime can make a great bouncy ball or ooze really well.

3. Fourth Grade Matter and its Interactions Unit: Students could dissolve different amounts of borax in their slime to show that matter is made of particles too small to be seen. (5-PS1-1) Find the mass of all of the ingredients first. Mix them together to make slime and find the mass of the slime. Students can create a graph and show that regardless of the combination of the substances, the total mass is conserved. You can also do weight because students do not distinguish between mass and weight at this level. (5-PS1.2) Make observations of the slime. (5-PS1-3) Investigate to determine if the slime is a chemical or physical reaction. (5-PS1-4)

4. Create an Engineering Design Project: This can be done at any grade level. After learning about slime, have the students create a slime that bounces the highest, slime that stretches the furthest, or stretches the fastest. Students will carry out fair tests and observe their failures and successes to create improved versions.

Try this Recipe