Small gold for 1st graders class demonstration

[B Street Blacksmith]

Hi,
My youngest daughter is in 1st grade, and after a long discussion with her teacher, I would like to have a small prospecting demonstration for her class before the end of the year.

This is what I'm looking for:

A good, reliable source, for a small amount of small gold (or cons with small gold in it) for a demonstration and panning session with the class.

I'm disabled, and don't have a lot of money to spend, but would LOVE to get enough together to be able to give each kid (there are 22) a couple small pieces of gold to take home afterwards.

Any ideas yall?

 

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[bobw53]

I just did the science fair thing last week (2nd time).. K-5... YOU have a nice advantage of having time with a limited # of kids.... There is some stuff over in the journal section about it..

I was just showing them how to pan... No sluices or geology or history lessons.. I had to process 4-5 kids every 5 minutes. Some of them were dumber than a stump, some just didn't listen,
and lot of the little kids really needed a nap since it was an afterschool thing... Some did really well, some just didn't get it.....

Anyways... I'll tell you what I did/learned, having done this twice so far....

My little speech started off with 4-5 kids in front of me.. I asked them what they knew about gold. I had a poster behind me that said GOLD is HEAVY/dense... (I should have skipped the dense part).
"Its shiny.. Its expensive... blah blah"... Point to the poster... "Gold is.............."...... And the kids that were paying attention/awake "HEAVY!!!" ... Gold IS.... HEAVY!!!!

How heavy is gold? I made up some cups... Sand and rocks.. Black sand (and I explained that if they go out in their yard with a magnet, they can find black sand)... And a cup of carbide inserts..
Most, but not all carbide inserts are actually gold colored (handy) and they are primarily tungsten, which is within a few percentage points of the density of gold....

They all thought I was an idiot handing them a cup of dirt to feel... Just feel how heavy it is and pass it on.... The black sands... They started to pay attention, because it is heavier...
Then you bring out the cup of "gold"... And they all want to know if its real gold... I just told them if it was real gold, I wouldn't be here... That HEAVY cup of carbide inserts REALLY wakes them up.

This is where I wish I had a tube full of stuff to show them that the heavy stuff, when liquified(shaken) goes to the bottom... Next year maybe... Italian dressing is a half assed example..

Here are my cups... This year I made sure that black sand cup was full to the top, and the carbide also.. I left the sand where it is in the pic... Really want to let them FEEL the difference.

Then each kid got a cup and as I "tried" to show them.. We panned. This is where you will have a HUGE advantage over what I did... You'll have TIME... You can REALLY explain it, and you won't have
100 kids and 20 other booths in the gym making noise and distractions. Basically its shake and wash...

The problem is getting the right mix of dirt... You want the blondes to come off FAST, and you want SOME black sand to make the point and at least cover the gold. And then you want the black sand to
be of a size that it will easily wash off of the gold when the blondes are gone. I did .04 or so grams of 25 mesh, that's approximately 12-15 pieces per kid, less than $2 each. For black sand, I think I went
20-50 mesh, and I used a the socket head of a 5/16 SHCS for a measuring cup... NOT a lot of black sand, then 3 or so tablespoons of 20-50 sand and a bunch of rocks so they had to get their fingers dirty.

Here is a pic of what .04 grams of 25 mesh looks like, along with a cup of "pay dirt".

Then it went from the snuffer, down a small funnel into a vial. And they got to take it home. I had the parents there so I wasn't worried about a glass vial, you probably wouldn't want to go that route..

Some kids are going to get it in a second and make YOU feel like a second rate panner.. Some others are going to make you wonder how they have enough brain capacity to remember to breathe.

The first time I was drug into a classroom to do stuff, I was scared, I figured they wouldn't give a crap... I was wrong, really wrong... The hour set aside turned into over 2 hours, and they missed
recess and not a one of them said a word about it. And I had a lot of fun..

I'd try to keep it simple... What you think will take a half an hour, will take an hour and half... Little kids ask LOTS of questions... And its a lot of little kids... Like puppies. One puppy keeps you busy,
2 puppies keeps you 10X busier, 3 puppies keeps you 100x busier... Cool pictures, things to hand around(pan, snuffer bottle, big piece of "fools gold", etc..) , stories, history... And every one of
them is going to want to tell you a story about "This one time... "

You'll have fun.

 

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[B Street Blacksmith]

I hear you! I've done several other seminars for kids, first grade about computers for my oldest daughter, 3rd grade about websites for my oldest daughter. They do ask a lot of questions, but it's nothing like what older people ask when trying to teach them about computers. I used to do a summer learning program at the local library to get older people into computers. That is one thing I will never do again!
I love the way the kids respond.
Thank you for all the advice, I will definitely use it!

 

[kcm]

Hey Bob, that's some great tips!!

Another thing the kids might find interesting would be yet another way of showing them just how heavy gold is. Bring in a gallon-jug of water. Then find a rock or block of steel that is about 2" x 2" x 3", and paint it with gold spray paint. Have them look at the two objects (from a distance), then ask them which one weighs more. When they all answer the water, then explain to them that gold weighs 19 times more than water. Then explain that if the jug of water was actually gold, it would weigh as much as their teacher! (actually, it'd weigh 160 lbs.) ...Or something like that.

...Just a thought.

 

[goldog]

These are great ideas. I hope your outing goes well. The laminated card is a really cool idea. For a gram or two of gold the kids will have an experience they'll remember forever.

 

[bobw53]

Hey Bob, that's some great tips!!

Another thing the kids might find interesting would be yet another way of showing them just how heavy gold is. Bring in a gallon-jug of water. Then find a rock or block of steel that is about 2" x 2" x 3", and paint it with gold spray paint. Have them look at the two objects (from a distance), then ask them which one weighs more. When they all answer the water, then explain to them that gold weighs 19 times more than water. Then explain that if the jug of water was actually gold, it would weigh as much as their teacher! (actually, it'd weigh 160 lbs.) ...Or something like that.

...Just a thought.

I like that idea.. Just bouncing some #'s in my brain here... 128 ounces of water, by weight and "fluid volume" is.. Duh... 128 ounces. 16 cups...

I'm thinking half gallon. 64 ounces. 4 pounds.

64 ounces by weight of sand should be 25 ish or so fluid ounces, less than 2 pints taking into account the space in between grains...

Black sand, somewhere around 11 fluid ounces, a soda can or an old fashioned Coke bottle.

Gold/tungsten.. 3.4ish fluid ounces... Probably a juice glass, or small tea cup full of carbide inserts, considering how much air space is in there.

Back to the steel idea... 4 pounds. .283 pounds per cubic inch of steel (you gear heads will remember that), 2" diameter 4 and a half inches long...

Solid tungsten, 8 inches or so of 1" diameter, or less than 2 inches of 2" diameter. 8 inches of 1" diameter Tungsten is $283... Carbide inserts,
at least for me, are free... Not initially, but I get my money's worth before they go in the retirement plan (scrap) bucket.

The problem with those things, now that I'm thinking of it, is VOLUME.. VOLUME is hard to see, 3 dimensions. A gallon of milk is pretty big.. How many gallons of
milk does it take to fill a cubic foot? Think about it... How many cubic feet in a 5 gallon bucket? A gallon weighs 8 pounds, how much does a cubic foot of water weigh?

I'm thinking 2 dimensions.. A clear cylinder with milk (or colored water), 19 inches long on one side of a balance. Then put a cylinder of the same diameter on the other side full of
sand, and balance it. Be probably 7" long... Cylinder with black sand, probably 3.5" long... Then the Tungsten, you'd only need an inch(painted gold of course)...

Back to how many gallons fit in a cubic foot... A gallon of water. In theory, 128 ounces, 8 pounds. How many of those fit in a cubic foot?
Its deceptive, you'd think 3 or 4... How many cubic feet is a 5 gallon bucket? Over a foot and half tall, a foot wide...

A 5 gallon bucket holds only 67% of a cubic foot, and a cubic foot holds 7.4805 gallons, almost 60lbs of water. Volume is deceptive like that. A 5 liter Mustang is a lot less cool
when its a 1.3 gallon, or even worse a ZERO (point).175 cubic foot. I'll just keep calling it a 302.. For reference, 231 cubic inches per gallon.

I like that idea... It makes the weight/density visual without having to pass around a bunch of cups. Or as many cups... The surprise on those kids faces when you give them
a small cup of carbide... A little 3oz Solo Cup that weighs well over 2 pounds. It really hammered the point home that GOLD IS HEAVY!!!

Sorry for babbling and thinking out loud, its been a long frustrating day.

 

[kcm]

**HAHA** ...and to think, I could ALMOST keep up with the babbling!

 

[B Street Blacksmith]

Lots of awesome advice!

Thanks guys! I knew I could count on yall!

Now just to scrape together enough "extra" cash to buy that small vial of gold, a large chunk of fools gold, and a few other supplies within the next couple weeks!

Already have all the black sand I'd ever need, all of the preclassified sand I'll ever want, and several different materials for the specific gravity demonstration :P