facebook
Make Cornflour Slime with Fizzics Education | Kids Science Experiments

Welcome!

Have 10% off on us on your first purchase - Use code NOW10

					

Making Cornflour Slime

Making Cornflour Slime

Follow FizzicsEd 150 Science Experiments:

You will need:

  • Cornflour (maize starch)
  • Water
  • Food colouring
  • Bowl
  • Spoon

Copyright

Materials to make corn flour slime showing a cup of water, a bowl, red food colouring and corn flour in a packet
1 Adding a food colouring to the water

Add a few drops of the food colouring into the water and stir it with the spoon.

2 Adding a cornflakes to the bowl

Pour some cornflour into the bowl.

3 adding of food colour on the bowl of cornflakes

Slowly add the water and food colouring mixture into the bowl and mix it with your hands.

4 adding more food colour on the bowl of cornflakes

If the slime is too powdery, add more water and food colouring.

5 Mixed cornflakes and food colour

If it is too runny add more flour.

6 A blonde girl smiling and watching blue slime dripping out of her hand in front of her

You know your slime is done if when you poke it hard and fast it feels like a solid. But when you poke it slow and gently it feels like a liquid. This is called a non-Newtonian liquid.

7 A man watching bubbles pour out of a large measuring cylinder

Get the Unit of Work on States of Matter here!

  • What are the different states of matter?
  • How does heat affect the size of materials?
  • How does liquid nitrogen affect materials and much more!

Includes cross-curricular teaching ideas, student quizzes, a sample marking rubric, scope & sequences & more

Orange read more button

8 Glowing green slime dripping out of a hand in front of a UV light
9 Teacher showing how to do an experiment outside to a group of kids.

Online courses for teachers & parents

– Help students learn how science really works

Orange read more button

Why Does This Happen?

If you could check out cornflour up and close you would see that the powder is made up of particles that are relatively big with edges that are jagged and uneven. When you slowly move the slime with not much force, the slime acts like a liquid as the particles have space to move around each other. However if you add more force, the jagged bits get snagged on one another and the slime acts like a rock. Once you stop stirring it quickly, the particles can slide past each other again, so the slime acts like a liquid.

This ‘stir-thickening’ of the cornflour slime shows that the material is a Non-Newtonian fluid, which means that the material does not follow the properties described of fluids by Newton’s law of viscosity which defines the relationship between the sheer stress to sheer rate of a liquid at a given temperature and pressure (in the case of a Non-Newtonian fluid, the viscosity is not constant and is dependent on the sheer rate i.e. in this case, the amount of pressure applied).

How can this science be used?

Non-Newtonian fluids can be handy! Plenty of research is being done about how to use this special material in modern technology. Local and international scientists, as well as engineers, have been developing liquid body armour using non-Newtonian fluids, since they are really good at stopping bullets!

In 2010 a number of articles were released about the development of a speed bump that dynamically changed depending on how fast cars were travelling over it! If you travel over the speed bump at a slow speed the fluid inside the speed bump would move out of the way and you’d barely feel the speed bump. However, if you travel over the speed bump too fast the speed bump would react quickly to the increased force and become almost solid… making your car bounce and reminding you to slow down!

Variables to test

More on variables here

  • Vary the amount of water that you use.
  • Try cornflour vs wheat flour. Can both make a slime?
  • Does warm vs. cold water make a difference to your slime?
  • Does removing the food colouring make a difference to your slime?

A man with a glove above a liquid nitrogen vapour cloud

Learn more!

Comments

One thought on “Making Cornflour Slime

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This website uses cookies to improve user experience. By using our website you consent to all cookies in accordance with our Cookie Policy.