Crystal Growing Glow in the Dark

Description

Grow dozens of colorful crystals, including two types of crystals that glow in the dark. Experiment with growing a variety of crystals from a potassium alum salt solution. Add strontium aluminate to your crystal solutions to make phosphorescent crystals that charge up in the light and then glow in the dark on their own, slowly emitting the stored light energy. Or try adding one of two ultraviolet-reactive pigments, pink and greenish-yellow, to your crystals to create fluorescent crystals, which glow in stunning colors under the light from the included ultraviolet flashlight.

Mold fun plaster shapes, including moons, stars, butterflies, neon signs, mushrooms, frogs, and gemstones, and then grow layers of crystals on them. Use dye tablets together with the glowing pigments to experiment with different color combinations, and mix the dyes to grow a rainbow of custom colored crystals. Mold your own glowing crystal geode — a hollow rock lined with crystals — and create a beautiful crystal cavern inside.

Experiment with growing crystals rapidly and slowly, and observe how that affects the crystal structures. See if you can grow one giant crystal, and many small crystals on the surface of a rock.

Measure how the crystallization of solids out of a solution, and the dissolution of crystals back into solution, affect the temperature of the solution. Learn about the energy of crystallization. Investigate solutions, crystallization, and the chemistry of crystal growing. Learn about the structures and geometries of different crystal shapes.