MakingWithWax

#MakerEd #MakerCenteredLearning is more about process than product, though having a viable, usable product at the end is a plus. Making fosters the C’s (creativity, communication, collaboration, critical thinking, community…) & the P’s (peers, passions, play, projects). Making teaches many life/21st cent/soft skills. But most importantly, making gives every person their own on ramp to the content. An in from their own point of view. It also opens up avenues for discussions.

There are two simple and useful products to make that use wax : candles and lip balm. You will also want to use essential oils with these. You can make candles simply from soy wax or by mixing beeswax with coconut oil. {i have not made beeswax candles yet, but several recipes call for 1/2 pound beeswax + 1/4 cup coconut oil}. The recipe I used for lip balm was 1:1:1 of beeswax : coconut oil : shea butter. I did 1/4 cup each, added 1.5 mL of essential oil and that filled 25, 5 mL containers, plus some extra.

There are a myriad of topics that you can discuss while you make these things :

Melting points

Vaporization points

Diffusion

Measurements

Color mixing

Environmental sustainability of ingredients

Global origins of ingredients

Trade

Cultural meaning of oils/scents

Cultural uses of candles

Time period switching from candle use in homes to next source

Instruction writing

Marketing plans

Cost analysis

Label  design

Geometry of packages

Surface area & volume

The 5 senses

Differing effects of different scents

Pollution (petroleum based vs soy or beeswax)

Conversion between units (such a mix of mL, mg, ounce, cup…)

Books/short stories that have candles as props.

You will need a "double boiler" setup, a pan within a pan. I used a pyrex measuring cup in a pan of water. I heated the water to just below boiling. You will also want popsicle/craft sticks. I used them to stir as well as hold my wicks in place. Soy wax & wicks. That package only gave two wick holders, which is why i used craft sticks. I got about 24, 4 ounce candles out of 5 pounds of soy wax, so I bought some more (without the wicks). Beeswax (you can get yellow if you want, products will have a slight yellow tint to them), coconut oil, shea butter. Containers for candles (i went with 4 oz metal) and lip balm (I used 5 mL). Essential oils are your final purchase. if you are doing lip balm, the smaller, 10 mL , jars are fine (I used 1.5 mL with 3/4 cup of balm and got 25 containers+extra). The candles require more. I did around 10% by liquid volume (300 mL melted wax got 30 mL oil), so you want the 4 oz bottles. There are many brands and I have a couple, but do not notice a difference yet.

Melt the wax, pull off the heat, stir in oil, pour into containers, let solidify. 

Clean up mess. You know you spilled some.

Candle Making video link (jic)

snowflakes

It is that time of year to make paper snowflakes. Here is a digital version of that exercise. 
(ht to @mrlosik and his instructable to 3D print snowflakes https://www.instructables.com/id/3D-Printed-Holiday-Snowflakes/ ). 

http://rectangleworld.com/PaperSnowflake/ gives you a folded piece of paper that you draw polygons on to make cuts. {i wish they asked you how many folds you wanted}. The next step is to take a picture/screenshot of your snowflake. I used purple as a high contrast background to make it easier to remove later, there is not a choice for "no background". I imported the screenshot into my Cricut Design Space, then did some steps to remove the purple and saved the "new" image. [i completely missed the part where it gave an option to save as a "cut image" vs a "print & cut"]. Then I inserted the new image into a project and chose "no fill" under print, so it is just a cut image.

Now you are ready to cut this out of sticker material, heat transfer, window clings, cereal box...

Here is a quick video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DRZF_bUCYo