Jello

The other week my two daughters and I set out to do a Jello-related science experiment my 7 year old found in one of her books.  The goal was to make Jello-like molds that then hardened into Christmas tree type ornaments.  Unfortunately, part way through the experiment, I realized we were missing a key ingredient.  At this point we had a big bowl of lemon Jello that no one liked and no science experiment!  What to do?  We did what any budding scientist would do.  We experimented!

We decided to see what happens to Jello as it gets old, sitting on the kitchen counter.  So we let the Jello settle, cut out some shapes, sat those shapes on a plate, and patiently waited for a few days to go by.  Each day we took a look at the Jello to see how it had changed.  After a few days we had the following:

It's hard to tell from the picture, but the water in the Jello slowly evaporated, leaving the Jello tougher and tougher each day.  By the end I had to scrape them off the plate.  Although this experiment didn't turn out like we intended due to missing ingredients, we pressed on and learned something from it.  We learned that the water in the Jello, just like water in a glass, evaporates into the air.  The gelatin in the Jello does not.  It remains behind leaving us with very tough, inedible, Jello pieces.  

The moral of this story is to use your science skills to make something out of what started out as nothing!