What is this?

This week grade 4 students started investigating solids and liquids. We talked about some properties of the two. Students thought that solids were hard and liquids "flowy". We talked about how solids keep their shape while liquids take the shape of a container. We then made a non-Newtonian fluid by mixing corn starch and water. These fluids sometimes feel hard like solids and sometimes flow like liquids. We simply mixed cornstarch and water. Some quotes I heard were, "This is awesome!" and "This is so cool!" This is actually a very fun experiment to try at home. Corn starch is cheap and easy to clean. The Swedish word for it is majsstärkelse and it is usually in a yellow box in the baking section of the supermarket. A baking tray with cornstarch and water can keep small children entertained for long stretches of time. Put some trucks, dinosaurs or army men into the mix and the fun increases. I have never tried to put this mix on a speaker but it produces some cool results: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UVjOoJaWGo

Here is a fun Myth Busters clip involving A LOT of cornstarch. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wiYtoG9kZE 

The learning goal this relates to in the Active Planet unit is:

2.32 Be able to distinguish between solids, liquids and gases.