I love the wordplay

See, it's chucklesome because this clearly is a ridiculous way for glass to have been invented, but it's a funny way.

Using the Raku Process to Show Oxidation-Reduction

A little while ago, I went looking for a video to explain the oxidation/reduction aspects of raku so I could assign it for my students to watch while I was out of the classroom for a day.

Sadly I didn't find one, but I did come across this video from the inaugural ASM teacher camp in Butte, Montana. It doesn't explain the redox aspects of raku - though the title suggests that it might - but it does include your friendly, neighborhood blogger in his orange polo shirt (ASM-branded, natch), and jeans.

Because the video doesn't explain the science, I'll give a quick version...

• We use a clear glaze into which we mix oxidized metals (cobalt oxide, iron oxide, copper carbonate, nickel oxide, etc). Each glaze gets just one of those oxidized metals.
• The pottery is taken out of the kiln while it's hot - somewhere around 1050 ^oC. At that point the glaze is molten, allowing oxygen to leave the glaze.
• The hot pottery is placed into a metal can with something flammable. In this situation we're using torn up newspaper.
• The torn up newspaper catches fire and starts to consume the oxygen in the now-sealed can.
• The carbon and hydrogen from the paper continues to 'search' for more oxygen, so it reduces the metal in the glaze and takes the oxygen from the oxidized metals. (This only works if the pot is hot enough for the glaze to stay molten in the reduction environment.)
• The glaze cools, sealing in the now-reduced metal within it, leaving - hopefully, if everything works right - reduced, shiny metal in the glaze.
• The pottery is quenched in water to lock in the final version of the metal within the glaze - either reduced or oxidized metal.

You can see lots of versions of raku pottery on other blog posts.

What's 'activator' or 'magical liquid'?

Most years, I give my students some freedom after the AP chemistry exam. There's still so much more chemistry to learn, but I've completed the required curriculum for the year, so we can explore a few cul de sacs of chemistry.

We've played Minecraft because they told me there was a bunch of actual chemistry involved - which turned out to be kind of true. There's certainly a whole bunch of material science involved.

I've also had them research chemistry programs as universities around the midwest, practice and perform a demonstration for my non-AP course, and honestly - write a blog post for my chemistry blog. 

Today's post, however, is about the time my students asked if they could just make slime. We make polyvinyl alcohol slime in first year chemistry, but they wanted to make glue (which I recognize is often PVA-based) slime. One of the students said she had a gallon of Elmer's school glue at home from her Covid lockdown slime days (apparently slime-making was a thing for many school-age students during Covid lockdown?)

In discussing what they could bring in, other students in the class offered to provide shaving cream (apparently to make 'cloud' slime - a fluffy variation), small fruit-shaped slime charms, glitter, and non-staining food coloring. I, generous sort that I am, offered my leftover borax solution from the crystal making experiment early in our matsci curriculum. It's a little more than the 4% concentration called for in most slime recipes, but it's close enough.

One of the students asked me if the borax solution took the place of the activator. I'd never heard of an 'activator' solution before, so I started looking around online.

Apparently the borax solution + PVA/glue solution with which I am most familiar has some alternatives - sort of. There's the 'borax-free' variety using baking soda and contact solution, but the contact solution has to contain boric acid - which would be neutralized into...um...sodium borate (aka borax) with the addition of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). There's also the option to just purchase pre-mixed activators, one of which - shown in the image - is Elmer's Magical Liquid.

With a quick check of the Magical Liquid's SDS, I see that it's a solution of boric acid, sodium bicarbonate, sodium chloride (?), and a couple of anti-microbial agents. The various concentrations seem lower than I would have thought: <1% boric acid, 1-5% sodium bicarbonate, <1% sodium chloride, and <0.5% of each of the preservatives. I'm feeling too lazy to do the math to do actual calculations, but I'm pretty sure the combined percentages - discounting the bicarbonate and the chloride masses - would come out decently below the 4% of the borax solution I'm used. Wonder if that's just a case of commerce allowing for the lower concentration leading to more needing to be purchased.

At $17 per quart (from Amazon as of 6/7/26 when I'm typing this up), the magical liquid has to be a high margin item for Elmer's. It's more expensive if you want your slime to be green-apple-scented. Sadly the cherry limeade scent looks to be sold out and might be out of production now - even though Elmer's still has it listed on their website.

Cherry limeade's my favorite...grape's favorite, too.

Metal in Movies is WRONG

I know that you'll be shocked to hear this, but sometimes things in movies aren't real.

Go ahead, take a moment to let that sink in, to let the shock wear off.

In today's video Nate From the Internet addresses times when metals aren't dealt with appropriately in movies - primarily because of the density of heavy metals like gold and because of the black body radiation that should be given off when metals are hot.

I had noticed a couple of these myself - the 'molten' gold in The Hobbit and the weight of gold in The Italian Job 'remake' - but neither took me took much out of the movie. In the case of The Hobbit, it's because I wasn't enjoying the movie anyway. In the case of The Italian Job, it's because the cast is just so darn charismatic that I enjoyed the movie anyway.

Every Jewellery Metal Ranked (Some Are Terrible)

I don't know Mason Mignanelli from Adam, but he clearly knows more about working with metals for jewelry than I do.

As an aside, sources seem to say that jewelry (as my browser wants me to spell the word) and jewellery (as Mason spells it in his video title) are both correct, but that the shorter spelling is more prevalent in the US (where I am) and the longer is more prevalent in the UK (where I assume Mason is).

As a warning, the video does have a couple of spicy words at 1:30 (s*** - spoken), 1:40 (s*** - spoken), 5:55 (s*** - spoken), 6:30 (s*** - spoken), and 7:20 (kicka** - shown on screen).

tl;dr - no one metal is perfect. They all involve tradeoffs or workability/hardness, cost, and appearance. 

Perfect Aircrete, Kitchen Ingredients.

I've said it before that I'm not much of a DIY-er, so I'm not likely to make my own cement blocks to build anything, but I like the idea of trying this as a project with my students to balance strength/weight/cost in a building material.

The short version of the above video is that a version of aircrete can be made with xanthan gum, rubbing alcohol, water, dish soap, and cement with some vigorous mixing (a kitchen blender, a drill with a drywall mud attachment, or a smallish cement mixer).

The pastry and marble counter myth

I demonstrate something like this in my classroom using Flinn's ice melting blocks and a knock-off MiracleThaw from a second-hand store.

As one of the comments for the above video notes, "Thermodynamics is often very counter-intuitive." 

See, it's funny because Adam's talking about counter materials in the kitchen.

I'll wait while you laugh.

Remember, vinegar leg on the right.

Color Changing Glass - Rocks in a Box 30

I make glass in my classroom.

I've made glass colored with cobalt oxide (dark blue), copper (II) oxide (light blue), chromium (?) oxide (green), manganese (?) oxide (purple), and silver nitrate (disappointingly colorless).

I've not made any glass with neodymium oxide, but I'm thinking I want to do that as my next experiment.

Anybody know of a better, reliable, cheap source of neodymium oxide than these sources? I'll be honest that 1/2 a pound - even 1/4 pound when we're using less than a gram per batch - would last me pretty much forever.

BUILDING with RAMMED EARTH - An Impressive & Super Durable Natural Material!

I'm not a 'build my own home' kind of guy, but after watching this video, I would absolutely explore the use of rammed earth as a building material if I were in the business of building my own home.

The environmental benefits seem like a slam dunk, and the striations in the finished walls are gorgeous.

Bullseye Factory Tour

You might've seen the factory tour videos of Kokomo Opalescent Glass that I've posted before

If so, you might also have seen my comments that the lack of PPE used when the glass ingredients are being measured out. I comment on that every year with my students because I make them wear N95 masks when they measure out the silica and other glass batching ingredients. They're doing it once, and I insist on PPE. The Kokomo folks are assumedly doing that every day and - at least as of the time of the videos being filmed - they aren't using any breathing protection at all.

Today's video works as a contrast to that with Kokomo representing an old-school, 'that's how we've always done things' look at manufacturing, and the Bullseye Factory Tour shown above shows how more modern manufacturing should look.

I went looking for more Bullseye factory tour videos to check for PPE again. The above one was posted in 2017, and it shows PPE. The below one was posted in 2016, and it shows PPE. There's another that's dated 1979 that doesn't show the same PPE, but it also doesn't show the ingredients being measured out, and that's where I'm most concerned about the use of PPE masks. It does, however, show smoking on the floor of the glass factory which feels incredibly dated. The second video below, the one from The Oregonian specificially mentions some of the environmental concerns involved in the production of glass. It's more about the use of heavy metals, but it's a valid concern.

2026 Teacher Camps

Here we are, folks, with the 2026 ASM material science teacher camp schedule.

Through the teacher camps, ASM Materials Education Foundation offers a week of professional development focused on five goals...

• Teachers will grow in their curiosity and enthusiasm for materials science and translate that excitement into engaging learning experiences for their students.
• Teachers will select and adapt labs and demonstrations from camp that can be integrated into their existing classroom curriculum.
• Teachers will have the opportunity to observe, explore, and practice a variety of teaching strategies, such as inquiry-based learning, collaborative learning, hands-on experimentation, questioning techniques, and lab management skills, among others.
• Teachers will identify and implement real-world applications of materials science concepts to make lessons more relevant and engaging for students.
• Teachers will establish connections with local ASM chapters, STEM industries, and fellow educators for foster collaboration and professional growth.

Attendees will do roughly thirty labs in the week and see another twenty+ demonstrations connecting material science concepts to the curriculum attendees already teach.

The workshop is free...and some are even provide housing for out of town attendees.

Attendees earn professional development / contact hours.

Attendees can pay for graduate credit hours through University of Missouri - Kansas City ($250 for 2 graduate credit hours).

Plus, it's just lots of fun.

True Facts Water Walkers: Educational Edition

If you've watched any of the True Facts videos before, you might be a little leery of my posting of the videos. They have historically used some adult jokes to keep viewers interested along the way.

The newer TrueFactsEducational channel, however, keeps the jokes no worse than PG meaning that they're okay to watch - at least in a middle- or high-school setting - which is awesome because the information presented about how water striders - and spring tails - walk and move on a surface of water is excellent and entertainingly presented. 

I helped break a 142-year old bell, and that's okay.

It's good to have the real Tom Scott back. We've been surviving on substitutes for a while now, but there's nothing like the real thing.

In Tom's first video back on YouTube, he takes us to see four bells cast in Loughborough, England at Taylor's Bellfoundry. You can check out their behind the scenes video of the visit below and can visit their site here.

Tom sees them make the forms - out of sand, resin, horse manure, graphite, straw, and a whole lot of experience. It's an impressive process which results in four absolutely gorgeous bells cast in bronze.

Amazing Lego-Style HEMP BLOCKS Make Building a House Quick, Easy & Sustainable

Hempcrete?

The hempcrete blocks make me think a whole lot of straw bricks, a pretty old composite technology - which falls into my frequently-reinforced observation that the more environmentally friendly a technology is, the more likely it is to be an updated version of technology that humans were using a thousand or more years ago.

Here the 'hempcrete' is really hemp hurd mixed with lime. The lime then absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as the hempcrete sets.

Hemp has long been put forth as a renewable resource with fibers that can be useful in lots of ways.

If you're interested in learning more about hempcrete...

• Carbon Smart Materials Palette
• American Lime Technology
• Hempitecture
• Hemptraders

How the World's Most Expensive Color is Made

This video definitely doesn't make me sad, though I would understand why you might end up a bit blue after learning about the manufacturing process of lapis lazuli-based paints.

The Cennini method described here is understandably expensive - because it's insanely labor-intensive.

Understandably, Mohammed has a less labor-intensive method that he developed, but he's not sharing that with us in the video.

From about 6:40 onward, the video shifts from following the production method to looking into the mining of lapis lazuli in Afghanistan, a more political discussion than the initial portion of the video. Then they come back to Mohammed as he explains why natural, lapis-based paints are 'better' than its synthetic replacements.

Why It Was Almost Impossible to Make the Blue LED

I was watching a YouTube video from a Scottish YouTuber recently and heard him refer to a light as being a LED bulb. He, however, pronounced LED as if it were the element lead. I, an American, pronounce those bulbs as their three separate letters El Ee Dee, like an acronym. 

Neither, of course, is correct, nor is it at all relevant to this video.

This video, just over half an hour long and produced by Dr Derek of Veritasium, goes through the quantum mechanic explanation of how semiconductors conduct at room temperature which also explains how LEDs produce light and - eventually in the video - how LEDs can be tuned to produce different colors.

This video is also a great exploration of how doped semiconductors conduct electricity. 

I'm really happy that I don't have to teach this concept in my chemistry - or material science - classes because this really pushes my understanding of quantum mechanics and electronics. I didn't thoroughly understand it when I first heard about it back in 1993 or 1994, and I don't entirely understand it now. I do, however, fully accept that there are people who do understand these concepts and that we owe those people a massive debt because the widespread use of LEDs has been a huge revolution in energy savings for our world.

Plus it lets people wrap their cars in Christmas lights.

This Genius Magnet Stops Dangerous Leaks in Seconds!

I found the above video on Reddit (warning: NSFW word in the subreddit title) but with non-English narration. 

I then found the embedded video in likely AI-generated English.

From there I found the Magnaseal website from Neothane which had the following two video embedded.

...and...

Sadly the Neothane website doesn't list any prices just a button to request a quote. 

Other sites selling the MagnaSeal, however, suggest that it's a rather pricey item, so I don't think I'll be picking one up to demonstrate in my classroom.

All the Metals We Mined

 

Source - Visual Capitalist and USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries (2022) before that

I have a simple question about this graphic.

The iron presented is shown in weight of iron ore mined not of actual iron produced, and the rare earths are listed as "rare earth oxides", which I would also interpret as ore.

Some of the other metals seem to be presented in weight of actual metal produced (aluminum, for example, being listed as "smelted/refinery production"). 

Those quantities don't necessarily seem equivalent to me.

This Bridge Should Have Been Closed Years Before It Collapsed

The Fern Hollow Bridge collapsed on January 28, 2022.

Today's video sees Grady looking at the NTSB's report on the collapse of the bridge. 

The main issue can be mostly summarized as inspections that identified critical repair and maintenance on the bridge were ignored instead of being acted upon.

The report doesn't exactly fill me with reassurances that our infrastructure is safe for our daily use.

How to Make a Warning Last 10,000 Years

Alan Wiseman's The World Without Us has a chapter titled "Hot Legacy" that explores our efforts to create warnings that will last at least 10,000 years into the future and will tell future archeologists that the interesting stuff they've found at some of our nuclear waste repositories should not be explored.

Much of the research is being done at the Waste Isolation Pilot Project is New Mexico, USA, and it's that work that SciShow details in today's video.

I remember that the Wiseman chapter also mentioned the placement of various magnets around the site as a warning that something was at least weird in this location. The video doesn't mention that, and I'm surprised because I found that one of the more interesting ideas.