This activity adapted from pdf: https://www.acs.org/content/dam/acsorg/education/resources/k-8/science-…
Give students tubs of glue making materials, scoops, water bottles, trays, stir sticks.
Ask them to make the best glue possible, mixing the ingredients in a well of the tray. They should test their glue by putting a blob of it on a cardboard strip, pushing a marble into it, then hanging the strip upside down - the longer the marble holds, the better the glue. Students should count seconds to see how long their marble sticks (one mississippi, two mississippi...)
Distribute worksheets/use board space for students to record the recipes they make, so that they can keep track of their own changes, try others' recipes and start to quantitate the data.
A long-lasting recipe can be taped upside down over the edge of the table so other recipes can be tried while it is hanging - note the time that it was taped along with the seconds counted up to that point. When the marble drops, calculate the seconds elapsed. At the final discussion calculate the stick time for those still sticking - do the math together to calculate the number of seconds from the number of minutes.
Discussion around the data can include how to more accurately measure out the quantities (e.g. use standard teaspoon measures) and to time the sticking-times (use a stop watch), for fair comparison.
Students may well discover that their mixtures work better once they have dried out a bit, for good discussion on how commercial glues often require a drying time until they are full strength.
Acting out the glue molecules:
Flour-and-water glue forms in the same way that dough forms: gluten proteins and starch molecules of the flour are bonded together by water molecules.
Divide the students into two groups, A and B. Each group will make a glue molecule.
Four students in group A link hands in a line to make a long starch molecule. Then other groups of four students make starch molecules, to make a total of two starch molecules in group A and two starch molecules in group B (using a total of 16 of the students in the class).
The remainder of the students will be water molecules.
Ask the two starch molecules in each group (A and B) to line up facing each other, with a space between them.
Then ask the water molecules in each group stand between the starch molecules, and reach out their arms to touch both starch molecules, forming 'bonds' between the starch molecules. As more bonds form, the starch molecules are more fixed in place. In the same way, the glue the students made got thick as water was added to the flour.
Optional: race the As and the Bs. Which starch molecules in flour can combine with water to make a glue the fastest? First make your starch chains, then link them with water molecules.
Discuss how these glues work:
The long molecules in some of the ingredients (starch molecules in flour and cornstarch, and protein molecules (gluten in flour and casein in milk powder) are able to reach into the tiny cracks in the cardboard and hold onto it, like fingers reaching into cracks in a wall. (The smaller sugar molecules of the icing sugar is not so good at making a glue, unless it is made really thick). This mechanical mechanism is just one of the ways that real glues work.
Mechanisms of all types of glues:
The molecules of a glue need to be good at sticking to each other and to the material(s) it is glueing together. There are several molecular processes at work.
Adsorption - the glue and the material have charged molecules that attract each other. It is a weak attraction, but with many of these bonds they can hold the glue and surfaces of the material together.
Mechanical - the long molecules of the glue creep into the tiny holes in the surface of the material(s) and hold them together.
Diffusion theory. The adhesive can diffuse into the surface and vice-versa, with molecules swapping over at the join and mingling together.
Chemisorption - there is a chemical reaction between the glue and the material. (not the mechanism for the glues made in this activity)
From www.explainthatstuff.com/adhesives.html
