Borax bead test

Hey there little one! Today, I am going to explain to you something called the Borax Bead Test, but don't worry it's actually very easy to understand!

Borax is a kind of salt that looks like white crystals. It is often used in cleaning products like laundry detergent. But scientists use it too, to test different things in the lab. One of those things is the Borax Bead Test.

So, let me explain to you how it works. Scientists take a tiny piece of metal or mineral and put it into a flame. This is where it gets really cool!

When the metal or mineral heats up, it begins to glow different colors. Do you remember how we learned that light is made up of different colors like in a rainbow? It's the same thing here, but instead of a rainbow, we see different colors depending on what's in the metal or mineral.

This is where Borax comes in. Scientists will take a piece of Borax and put it on a metal wire. They'll then put that wire into the flame. The Borax will melt and cover the wire. When they take the wire out of the flame, it will turn into a little glass bead with Borax inside.

Are you with me so far? Great! Now, the fun part.

Scientists will take that little Borax glass bead and put it into different chemicals. Depending on what chemical they put it into, the Borax glass bead will turn different colors!

These colors are used to identify what kind of metal or mineral they are dealing with. Isn't that amazing!

So, that's basically what the Borax Bead Test is, a way for scientists to identify what kind of metal or mineral they are looking at.

I hope that was helpful and made sense to you, little one! Keep on exploring and learning!