5/23/2008

Unplugged Topic: Metal

Go here to visit other Unplugged Projects: http://www.unplugyourkids.com/

We chose aluminum. It is a metal we use all the time and have plenty of! if you do not know by now I cannot do a topic without a bit of history, science, vocabulary or art attached. Here are facts about the metal. Our projects are at the bottom of the post.

 

What is Aluminum? ( bit of chemistry and physics!)

http://nautilus.fis.uc.pt/st2.5/scenes-e/elem/e01310.html

http://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele013.html

http://periodic.lanl.gov/elements/13.html

http://www.rocksandminerals.com/aluminum/aluminum.htm ( great site! Shows how it is made as well as the history)

http://mii.org/Minerals/photoal.html

For High Schoolers

http://homepage.mac.com/dtrapp/ePhysics.f/labVI_3.html 

Charles Martin Hall ( creator of Foil)

http://nautilus.fis.uc.pt/st2.5/scenes-e/biog/b0046.html

http://acswebcontent.acs.org/landmarks/landmarks/al/hall_bio.html

Pittsburg Reduction Company ( now ALCOA)

http://www.chemheritage.org/classroom/chemach/electrochem/heroult-hall.html

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/print_430000.html

How is Aluminum Foil Made:

http://www.enotes.com/how-products-encyclopedia/aluminum-foil/print

Uses for Foil ( some of many!)

  • When scissors get dull, I layer about 7 pieces of foil and cut through them, and the scissors are sharp once again.
  • When brown sugar has gotten hard.:To soften the sugar, I wrap it in foil and bake it in a 300 degree oven for 5 minutes. To keep it soft, I leave it wrapped in the foil and enclose in a labeled ziploc bag.
  • Ball up some foil and use it to clean the gunk off your grill.It cleans just as well as a wire scrub brush.
  • Makes great gift wrapping paper in a pinch and can be decorated as you wish.
  • Use foil to clean the baked on gunk off my pots and pans. It works just as well as a steel wool scrub pad.
  • Wrap your hardware and doorknobs in foil so that they don't get dripped on when you are painting.
  • Half way through the baking process, take a length of foil and wrap around the edge of your pie, securing with a metal paper clip. This will prevent your crust from browning too much.
  • Roll a double thickness of heavy duty foil into a cone shape, snip off the end, and use as a pouring funnel.
  • Use it as a temporary piping bag or pastry bag by rolling it into a double thickness and leaving just a tiny hole at the pointed end. Fold down the top of the cone so nothing oozes out or twist the top closed.
  • Put a length of foil on your oven rack to catch spills. Many pizzas have instructions that tell you to bake the pizza on the rack, but what a mess that can make. Putting the pizza on cooking sprayed foil will save a big mess.
  • Grilled Veggies. Put a pat of butter and a small amount of water on top of veggies. Seal them in a pillow of foil. Grill with meats.
  • To prevent stuck on food in my baking pans and cookie sheets, I will line them with foil. It cuts down on cleaning time and leaves my pans looking just as good as they did when they went into the oven. Rinse off the sheets if they are not to disastrous and save them for another baking session, or rinse them off and put them in your recycling bin.
  • To prevent static electricity in your clothing, throw a small crumpled up ball of foil into your dryer.
  • For clothing items that can't take direct heat, such as rayon, silk, and wool, you can get the wrinkles out by placing a piece of foil on your ironing board. Put the garment over the foil, and pass 3 inches above the garment several times with the iron, holding down the steam button the entire time. The wet heat from the foil with rid the garment of wrinkles

Here is what we did using foil:

Foil Relief: This was so fun. We used stamps, screen, pencils, (dull ones)  rolling pin, and other objects to imprint the foil. One of my kids even used her handprint as part of the picture. You get two pictures for one! We colored the indent side with sharpies. The other side is a beautiful relief.Unplugged Metal 1

Unplugged Metal 5

 

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11 comments:

  1. Very pretty projects! We once had "foil" as a theme and my kids made some of those and really enjoyed themselves too. Yours are lovely!

    I like your list of uses of foil. Many were new to me like the dryer trick, and sharpening scissors? I can't wait to try these!!

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  2. The foil relief pictures are incredibly detailed. Beautiful!

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  3. The sharpies look so nice on the foil. Thanks for sharing.

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  4. What a cute idea! Thanks for sharing!

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  5. Those foil pictures are really lovely! We did this once and I was very impressed with how beautifully they turned out. The colors are almost stained-glass like.

    I really enjoyed reading your information about foil. I learned a lot! I had never heard about the dryer use or the scissor sharpening. Very interesting, I'll have to give those a try!

    I hope my comment goes through this time.

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  6. The foil pictures are beautiful! I love how you get the relief picture and the colored one as well.

    In reference to your comment, the hardware in the metal tray was VERY noisy activity but well worth it because she enjoyed herself so much!

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  7. Thanks for this great idea. We tried it today and they turned out so cute!

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  8. I did this and one of your other projects with my daughter this weekend. So much fun! I posted about it today if you'd like to take a look. :-)
    Thanks again for sharing these great ideas!

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  9. Careful baking and using aluminum in the kitchen with food- aluminum is poisonous-high toxicity found in Alzheimer's patients and other disorders of the nervous system.
    Your art is lovely, thank you for sharing
    Shine On!

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  10. Works great for cleaning grill grates too. Just wad it up and scrub.

    Daydreamer :)

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  11. Who knows where to download XRumer 5.0 Palladium?
    Help, please. All recommend this program to effectively advertise on the Internet, this is the best program!

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