Snowflake Jar

Crystal Snowflake
Collect
• Pipe cleaners
• String
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Wide-mouthed glass jar
• Boiling water (2 cups)
• Borax* (1/3 cup)
• Adult supervision
• Optional: Food coloring
*Borax can be found in the laundry section of the grocery store.
Make a snowflake frame
1. Cut a pipe cleaner into three equal pieces (about 4 inches each). Twist them together in the middle to
make a snowflake shape with six points.
2. Test your frame by tying a string to one of the points and lowering the snowflake into the empty jar. Trim
the points if the sides of the snowflake touch the jar or stick out of the top.
3. Once the frame fits inside of the jar, tie the other end of the string to the pencil and rest it across the jar
so that the snowflake can hang inside. Take the snowflake frame back out of the jar.
Mix the crystal solution
4. Boil 2 cups of water and carefully add it to the empty glass jar.
5. Stir in 1/3 cup borax until most of the powder dissolves in the water. Don’t worry if some of the powder
sinks to the bottom. That just means that your solution is supersaturated!
6. If you’d like to make a colored snowflake, add 2 or 3 drops of food coloring to the solution and stir.
Crystallize it
7. Lower your snowflake frame into the jar. Make adjustments to the length of the string if it isn’t
completely submerged.
601 Light Street Baltimore, MD 21230 • www.marylandsciencecenter.org
8. Put the jar on a stable surface where it won’t get moved or bumped.
9. Let it sit for 24 hours. Pull the snowflake out of the solution the next day to see the crystals that you grew!
What happened?
Borax powder is made up of tiny borax crystals. Water molecules can hold more borax crystals when hot
than when cold. This is because water molecules move farther apart when warm, leaving more room for the
borax crystals to dissolve! If borax powder fell to the bottom of the jar that means that there was no more
room for the borax crystals to fit between the water molecules. This is called a supersaturated solution.
When the solution starts to cool, the water molecules evaporate and move closer together, leaving less room
for the dissolved borax crystals. This causes the tiny borax crystals to slowly build on one another to form
the large crystals that you can see!
Results
1. What shape are your borax crystals? Are they all the same?
2. What do you think would happen if you put your snowflake back in hot water?
3. Hang your finished snowflake in a window or as a holiday decoration.
601 Light Street Baltimore, MD 21230 • www.marylandsciencecenter.org