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The Great Diaper Delusion. Group Assignment Procedure. Draw a colored stick from the caddy Figure out your job for your group Read and discuss the job descriptions. Collectors:. Get materials for the lab from Lab Headquarters! . Illustrate the diaper in your journal.
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Group Assignment Procedure • Draw a colored stick from the caddy • Figure out your job for your group • Read and discuss the job descriptions
Collectors: • Get materials for the lab from Lab Headquarters!
Illustrate the diaper in your journal. • What can your team say about the diaper? • As a team describe it in your journal as detailed as you can using your senses– (NOT taste!)
What Makes Diapers Work? • Make some educated guesses as a team about what is inside a diaper to make it absorb liquid. • Explain your answer….Note in your journal that it is only a prediction! • Example: Prediction: We believe diapers are able to absorb liquid because _______________.
Things That Absorb • Sponges • Cotton • Tissue • Paper Towel • Cloth • Any more?
None of these are inside diapers! • Polymers are actually the material inside diapers that help them absorb liquids and keep moisture away from sweet baby bottoms. • A polymer is simply a long chain of repeating molecules. • Modern baby diapers contain polyacrylic acid, a super-absorbent polymer. When some of this polymer was added to a beaker with water and stirred, it absorbed many times its weight in water. • Many polymers, such as polyethylene and polystyrene (used in trash bags, plastic bottles, and Styrofoam®, for example) are hydrophobic, meaning they repel water. Polyacrylic acid, however, is very hydrophilic - it attracts water.
Super-absorbent Polymers • Superabsorbent polymers expand tremendously when they come in contact with water because water is drawn into and held by the molecules of the polymer. They act like giant sponges. Some can soak up as much as 800 times their weight in water! That would be one wet baby!
Diaper Dissection • Using scissors from the caddy, cut into the diaper as shown by the teacher. Your team needs to extract all the “fluff” from this and try to get out as many tiny crystal polymers as possible onto your paper. • Put the rest of the fluff in a zippy bag. • Zip it and shake it to release more crystals—pour the extra crystals onto the paper with the others.
Now look at them! • Now make observations of your crystals. • Draw and label them in your journal • Write your observations using your senses.
How much water can it hold? • Now your team needs to take the crystals and pour them into your cup of 4oz of water and stir them. • Record by illustrating and writing what you have done and how it looks at the beginning. • Then wait 5 minutes as we talk as a class. • What skills have we been using to help us in this investigation?
After 5-10 minutes • Check your mixture. • What is happening? • Explain and journal about this. Create an updated illustration of what is going on in the cup. • Turn the cup upside down. What do you notice. How did the crystals change?
Get Messy! • Over your plate…you are welcome to get your hands messy. • What does the polymer feel like now? • Illustrate and describe this in your journal.
Now what have you learned today? • Based on the investigation, what have you figured out about how baby diapers work? • How is that different that what we thought before? • Journal about this in your Science Notebook.