We have received our first MEL Chemistry box, something the kids were really impatient to start. And guess what, finally something to be proud of being a Russian from St.Petersburg – that’s where MEL Science kits are actually being made! It’s been a while since I have seen a “Made in Russia” on anything awesome.
The first two experiments we tried today were part of the Artificial Sea Set: Chemical Seaweed and Chemical Jellyfish. They both involved working with metal salts (sulphates) and watching them react with different solutions. The time lapse video above shows the seaweeds “growing”: “Metal salts gradually dissolve and react with the potassium hexacyanoferrate(II). Insoluble copper, iron and zinc compounds form. These don’t just precipitate out but form “bubbles” because of the osmotic pressure. The fancy chemical seaweed grows from these bubbles”.
It was fun to watch the metal salts change colours: iron turned bright blue and blue copper sulphate turned brownish red!
The funny little things in the petri dish are the “jellyfish” we made as a finishing touch to our artificial sea. We created theses by firing metal salt solutions into sodium silicate (liquid glass). “An ion exchange reaction occurs between the sodium silicate and the metal salts. As a result, insoluble metal silicates form. These resemble jellyfish!”
Metal salts starting to grow in potassium hexacyanoferrate:
Unboxing the first kit:
Busy with the experiment(s):
We also dived into the MEL Chemistry app that allows you to see all the molecules of the reagents involved in 3D.
Geeks out of the box 