All this discussion about fabric left us wondering…what happens when fabric gets soiled or dirty? How does it get soiled or dirty? How does it get clean? Our scientists had lots of wonderings so we decided to get to work! We got our lab coats and safety glasses and got to work!
First we had to soil the fabric…but how? Lucky for us, Mrs. Kurt picked up some ketchup, mustard and chocolate syrup to help with that. We smeared some of each on our fabric sample and this was fun!
So now that our fabric is soiled, how do we clean it? When our clothes get dirty, we use a washing machine to clean them. Only one problem…we have no washing machine at school. Now what? We decided to try using water and scrub brushes to clean it!
After a valiant effort, the fabric was wet, but not particularly clean. Now we wondered if it would help to add soap to some clean water and try again. So, like all good scientists, we tried it!
After lots of hard work scrubbing fabric and a few water spills, we concluded that the soap, water and brushes to scrub the fabric actually did help it get a little cleaner. Overall observations included that the ketchup and chocolate syrup pretty much came out but the mustard did not. The fabric was not the bright white that it was when we started the activity. We needed a way to dry our fabric before we brought it home...
…since we have no dryer in school, we figured out a way to hang a clothesline. We did decide that doing laundry must be lots easier these days than it was for people in the past.
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