Shrinky Dink Science

Today we watched the magic of Shrinky Dinks unfold before our very eyes. What fun! I did a quick google of "science of shrinky dinks" and here was our impromptu science lesson!

From www.education.com : So what is so scientific about the fine art of creating shrinky dinks? Other than creating a time-warp and bringing us back to the 1970’s, shrinky dinks are a great example of how thermoplastics are made. Plastics are made of long chain-like molecules called polymers (meaning “many parts”). Because polymers chains are so long, they can be manipulated to create a wide-range of properties, in this case for #6 plastic, polystyrene. Polystyrene is a thermoplastic, meaning the long polymer chains are heated and stretched, then cooled to form the plastic sheet. The polystyrene remains in this “stretched out” state unless something causes it to change. The cool thing about thermoplastics is that upon reheating the plastic, it reverts to its original state, in other words, it shrinks. This is the same process used to “shrink wrap” items like food containers or other products that have protective plastic wraps.

Well, who knew?! M-6 went on a shrink wrap hunt through the house and C-11 and I talked about the different plastics and how the numbers are on the bottoms of containers. That set him on a search of how many different plastics he could find.

It's all about finding the wonder in things!