TEACH BACK :: Cleaning Up COVID! by Aracely Martinez

This is a fun easy project to do when you're at home with your family! During this pandemic we are stuck in our houses and are always on our laptops, so with this slime it with clean away all the bacteria on your keyboard to keep your space clean and COVID free!

For this project I interviewed my mom, Vanessa. She is 36 years old and her favorite subject back in high school was Math. Her favorite activity to do for fun at home is just spend time watching movies with her kids. The thing she misses about school is being able to do all these fun things without worrying about adult stuff such as bills. A project she made with her hands and she is proud of is a mug she made in her old ceramics class. Her least favorite thing about social distancing is that everything is closed and she gets bored. I told my mom about the laser cutter poster I made, the vinyl sticker I made, and many other side projects but she got excited about the sticker project because she never knew you can make your own design of a sticker and a sticker in general.

Guiding Question: How might I, Aracely, instruct my mom, a 36 year old that likes to spend time with her kids and is bored in this pandemic, to make cleaning slime so that they can spend time with her kids and also be productive all while being stay safe?

Supplies

Borax
Water
Measuring spoons
Elmers glue
Food Coloring (optional)

Materials I used during this project:

iPhone camera
MacBook
Gloves
Cleaning wipes

A material I used before in our Dream Lab is a MacBook.

Step 1: Glue and Water

The first step is to grab your first bowl and add 2 Tablespoon of water and 2 Tablespoons of glue. Once you've done that you want to go right ahead and mix them until it looks like milk (look at picture for reference). This next part is optional but if you want to add 2 drops of food coloring to make your slime colorful, add the coloring in after you have mixed the water and glue. Don't worry the food coloring does NOT stain your keyboard!

The tool I wanted to use in our Dream Lab was the Tablespoons.

Step 2: Borax

In your second bowl you want to add 4 Tablespoons of borax

A material I used that I have wanted to use in our Dream Lab was borax.

Step 3: Mixing

Now you want to add your bowl of borax into your bowl of glue and mix them together until you get that slime consistency.

An element of curiosity I used was taking a risk and adding food coloring to see if it would have a negative impact, which it didn't!

Step 4: Safety Step

For the next step I advise you were gloves, just until you are done molding so your hands won't get messy.

Step 5: Molding

After you have mixed both bowls you want to pick up your product and mold it with your hands, play with it, until it dries out and you feel like it that slime texture. It should also not be dripping water, you know you have the right consistency when you can place it down and leaves no residue.

A safety hint: For this step you should wear gloves just until you're done molding just so your hands won't get messy