I’m sad to say I don’t expect this cool contraption to show up on a Smartboard at my local elementary school anytime soon. These types of units tend to be outsourced to the PTA-sponsored Cultural Arts assemblies, where maybe five students will get a hands-on experience.

Luckily, Professor AnnMarie Thomas at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota has created a Squishy Circuits website with instructions, sources of materials, and videos that will walk me through doing this activity with my kids in my kitchen. I figure we’ll spend one afternoon making the two types of dough and another afternoon playing with electricity.  Actually, I love how Prof. Thomas introduces good engineering lab practices even though this is an activity for young kids.

In the coming days, I’ll provide some background of the properties demonstrated in this activity.