Plastic From Cows!!!

Morley had his first Science Fair in March.  

He was pretty nervous because he has never had the experience before.  He also is a procrastinator.

His project, display board paper were left til the absolute last minute but he got it done and it was awesome.

...Plastic From Cows...

With only two ingredients: milk and vinegar, plastic can be made from milk.

His experiment was to use three different milks: 1%, 2% and whole milk.  He would turn each milk into a plastic and test to see what plastic was the strongest.  Morley's hypothesis was the plastic from the whole milk would be the strongest.

So....long experiment made short for blogging.....different measurements of vinegar were put in four cups and then warm milk was added....so a total of 12 different experiments going on (4 for each milk type).  Curds would form and then he had to strain the curds from the liquid with cheese cloth.  Then he weighed each batch of curds (casein plastic) individually then combined their weights for each milk type.

The picture right above is the liquid that was left after the curds were strained.  Below are the different milks and their different casein plastic weights before or after combining.
Then, he formed three  squares-one for each of the milks and waited for them to dry.
It took much longer than we expected and left him doing the actual strength test the day before the project was due.  Also causing last minute final paper writing...which was 16 pages in the end!

We painted each piece of casein a different color that coordinated with the graphs on his board.
I wasn't sure how he was going to test the strength but he came up with a perfect idea!  Resting the square of casein plastic (milk) between two chairs and then balance different weights over the center using a shoelace.  Brilliant!  Remember, he thought the whole milk would be the strongest.
His hypothesis was proven wrong. 

Blue= 2% milk

Red=1% Milk

Yellow=Whole Milk

The casein plastic made with the 1% milk was the strongest and the whole milk the weakest.  It was very cool to watch him figure this all out and get excited about the project.

He was the only one that dressed up for the Science Fair and set a wonderful example.  Morley was well prepared and gave a great presentation. He wasn't picked by the judges for an award to the surprise of even his science teacher but he just blew it off.  However, he did take his project to a multi school Science Fair last week for another presentation.  This time.....he was chosen by the judges to attend the STATE SCIENCE MEET in Omaha!  Three of his classmates were also chosen and hopefully they will all go the first week of June.  We are so proud of him, he did a fantastic job!

He really was excited to be there but I took this at the very end after he had been talking and standing for 2.5 hours.  He was done and happy to have it over with.

 

Now you know that you can indeed make plastic from cows!