Students experiment with making crystal ornaments

Drew Stone’s science class participated in a Christmas activity by creating crystal ornaments throughout the last week before Christmas Break.

The ingredients used to make the crystal ornaments included borax and water. Students then had to stir the borax and water together so that the borax would dissolve into the water.

“It was pretty fun and I liked it,” Peyton Arner ‘26 said. “It was cool with how you could get your own ornaments and how over night they would form crystals.”

Students would then design how they wanted to make their ornament look by using a pipe cleaner and bending it into the shape that they wanted. When that was finished students would then wrap a piece of it around a pencil and dip it into the borax infused water where the pencil would keep it floating.

“I based mine off of a candy cane,” Molly Hansmire ‘26 said. “For my first ornament I only used 3 scoops and for my second scoop I used 7 which went better.”

A day would then have to pass in order for the students to see their results. Students who used six scoops of borax received better results than those who used only two scoops and when students were satisfied with their results they were able to take home their crystal ornaments.

“I think it went well,” Mr. Stone said. “We started with a low amount of borax which didn’t go well so we needed to add more borax and those came out good.”