Ever heard of Polymorph ??

This term we are "playing" with polymorph.
Its a re useable, re cycleable and environmentally friendly plastic. It fits perfectly with our topic this term which is SUSTAINABILITY....
we needed to find a product that fitted this category and most importantly was a little bit different so POLYMORPH it was.
Its expensive - $70 a kilo but with a little bit of bargaining we got it to $50 a kilo so every child in the intermediate got 200 grams each - which is quite a lot.
Our idea was that they had to find a need and make it with polymorph. make a protoype and see how it came out. If it didn't work then simply put it back into hot water and it returns to a gel like consistancy and then re mould, re shape to your new design.
This way we don't waste anything!
Right now we have got our design - it's been approved and we are fully into making the product !
In our ideal world we have this finished in week 5 and then we make the recycled packaging to go with it !
But right now that is not going to happen as we want the children to design - make - critique - re design and re make until they are satisfied... and that will take time
So let's play !

Several things along the way we have learnt about polymorph !

We showed them how to melt it using hot water and that was great but after a while it begins to go hard so they rolled it into a ball !!

NO !!!!

FIRST MISTAKE !

So we spent the next lesson re melting it and it took heaps of time as the hot water takes time to penetrate the large mass..

....but this time we got them to make "biscuits" which are small bits that are very thin... which when needed were easy to re melt !

We used the microwave with a large ceramic bowl of water and that did it quicker - 3 minutes on high and then peel off the biscuits and store to go cool. You may need to do it 2 - 3 times but it works !

SECOND great thing we did !
our problem was keeping the water hot enough for long enough so we have used crock pots full of hot water and it works brilliantly.... just do not leave it in for too long !
last lesson we had children round the crock pot dipping biscuits to melt and then moulding their project item and adding bits as they go... making sure no surface area was any thicker than .5 of a cm so if it needed re modelling - melting etc then it was OK

We had conversations round the crock pot (slow cooker)  - much like round the water cooler at work !