What makes ivory soap expand in the microwave

After giddily crumbling 2 bars of soap back into the bowl, my 4 year-old ran to the kitchen for a glass of water and added it to the soap to try to make the soap back into a bar again. What an amazingly messy sensory experience. Those tiny air bubbles also contain water molecules. When these air bubbles and the water within are heated in the microwave, the water vaporizes, changing from a liquid to gas. This expanding of the gases both the air and water contained inside the soap causes the soap to expand and become fluffy.

The heat also makes the cloud-like soap to be soft and pliable. Continue the fun with our 30 Science Experiments — our favorite kid-friendly experiments and a no prep science journal little scientists can use to record their results!

Expanding Ivory Soap Experiment. At the same time, the heat from the microwave causes the soap itself to soften, allowing the expanding gas to push the soap outward. But what can you do with the soap dust? To reconstruct the Ivory soap bar, simply add some warm water to the powder and mix.

I threw everything in the food processor and let the machine do the work. It reminds me of baking, but with a much more fragrant flour!

Let your kids pick out cookie cutters and fill them with your soap dough. Leave the soap dough in the cookie cutters for a couple of days in a dry area. Then after they dry, simply take them out and use them in the shower! The Ivory soap experiment is shockingly not the easiest experiment to clean up after. When we played with the soap dough, a lot of it got stuck on the dining table. Some pieces of the dough fell on the ground and got stepped on. Thank goodness my son loved using a sponge to wipe all the soap off because that look a long time.

Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. About The Author. Betty Betty Boiron is a busy homemaker, former engineer and teacher, and homeschooling mom of two. We used this time to fill in the rest of the science worksheet by drawing a picture of the soap after it was microwaved and writing a short explanation of what happened.

Once the soap cloud was cooled down I let the kids dig right in. They loved crumbling it between their fingers. It still smelled really good and fresh and made our entire kitchen smell so clean! When Ivory Soap is manufactured it has a lot of air whipped into it. This air gets trapped into the bar in little air pockets. When the soap is heated in the microwave the air in those little pockets expands, making the entire bar of soap puff up.

Even after being microwaved the soap is still good to use! You can take it into the shower and use it just like regular soap or you can use it in any of these fun and creative ways. Walking Water Science for Kids. Science Notebook. Plants Unit. This Endless Science Mega Bundle will save you so much time and keep your students engaged and excited about learning.

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