Goldenrod+Paper

Chemistry introduction: Chemistry is about how atoms interact. The study of chemistry involves many solutions. My hand is in a solution that contains a vasodilator. See my hand is turning red. What does dilate mean. What does the vaso part of the word mean? What solution is in the veins of my hand? What is the most abundant substance in blood? In this demonstration we will try to get the water out of the blood in my hand. If I can move my hand really fast and stop it really quick, we might see evidence that the water keeps moving right out of my hand. Hopefully the demonstration doesn't go too far in separating water from my hand. Source for the paper: [] Rub a cotton ball soaked with ammonia water on the paper and it turns bright red! Ammonia water is a cleaning agent and is classified in chemistry as a base. If the opposite of a base is an acid, what would happen if you rubbed a cotton ball soaked with vinegar or lemon juice on the red streaks? The paper changes back to yellow!

[] cite MY //**OLD ACID RAIN DEMO**//: Wet the inside of a glass jar. Light a match, blow it out, then collect the smoke inside the upside-down jar. After awhile the drops of water collect nasty combustion products from the smoke and become acidic. Touch the drops to previously reddened goldenrod paper, and it turns yellow, indicating acid. Instant acid rain! And might you think twice about smoking cigarettes and putting acid in your lungs? I thought up this one while working at the Museum of Science in Boston.
 * //ELECTROLYSIS//**: wet some goldenrod paper with salt water and place it on a sheet of aluminum foil. Use clipleads to connect the positive terminal of a 6v or 9v battery to the foil. Connect a wire to the negative battery terminal. Now drag the negative wire across the wet goldenrod, and it turns red. Write with electrochemistry! If you reverse the polarity of the battery, you can erase your red drawings. If you replace the goldenrod with previously-reddened paper, the reversed battery connections let you draw in yellow on a red background. (the positive plate creates acidic solution, while the negative plate makes alkaline.)
 * NOTE**: Young kids shouldn't perform the following demonstrations. Ammonia is somewhat toxic, is nasty if inhaled, and is dangerous if splashed in eyes. Adult supervision only. //__Wear safety goggles__//.
 * //AMMONIA DEMOS//**: Wet some goldenrod paper, then drip some ammonia-based cleaner upon it. Notice that the red drops have red haloes around them? Just the ammonia fumes alone can turn the paper red. Wet some goldenrod paper. Put some ice cubes in a jar, then pour in a little ammonia and wait for some cold ammonia gas to build up. Carefully pour the transparent ammonia gas over the wet goldenrod paper, and it flares red. Dip a wet strip of un-reddened goldenrod into the seemingly-empty jar, and you'll discover the depth of the pool of cold ammonia gas. Make wet marks on dry goldenrod, and when cold ammonia gas is poured over it, the wet marks turn red. (Don't leave the jar of ice cubes sitting around, dump it out so that passersby can't take a sip from your glass of "icewater.") Use a smoke-ring box to shoot invisible ammonia "smoke rings" at wet goldenrod paper. Little red puffs appear where they hit. Freak out Kinko's Copies employees by buying one sheet of goldenrod, asking for the bottle of glass cleaner, then yelling "look!" while spraying the paper with the ammonia-based cleaner. But be warned, I've been doing this for awhile, so the secret is spreading from Kinko's to Kinko's like a mind-virus. They may already know about it. The Goldenrod Paper Secret was passed on to me around 1987 by Dr. Roy Gould of Harvard CFA, who got it from his brother, an R&D chemist in NYC, who heard about it as the "secret" traveled from chem lab to chem lab across the country. I wrote up this paper and posted it on the web around 1995. Since then it has spread all over the place!