Moon Sand

When I became an assistant mentor for the high school robotics team, I soon discovered that one of our team's most important missions was outreach to the community, in general, and to young children, in particular, in order to spark their interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

Our first outreach opportunity of the season was STEAM Night at the local elementary school.  Participants in the evening's event were asked to provide hands-on opportunities for children.

Our group would offer robot driving lessons (always a crowd pleaser), but we needed something more.

After doing some research on-line, I found the following recipe for moon sand from several different sources:

Moon Sand

8 cups flour
1 cup baby oil (I used vegetable oil)

Mix flour and oil with your hands until ingredients are well mixed and of the desired texture (fine texture without lumps).  If mixture is too dry, add additional oil a tablespoon at a time.

My research indicated that other kinds of oils would work to create moon sand. I decided to use vegetable oil so that the substance would be non-toxic if it was eaten (either accidentally or on-purpose!).

Affordable activities for a crowd are hard to come by so I was delighted to find that I could purchase the ingredients at the dollar store.

I had the robotics team mix up two batches of moon sand and place a half cup of it along with a small flyer (explaining what moon sand is and how to make it) into 100 small ziplock bags. The event participants were each given a bag to take home.

We mixed up two more batches and placed them in a plastic underbed storage container.  Children were allowed to touch and play with the moon sand.  Small cups and cookie cutters were placed into the moon sand for molding shapes.

It was quite a hit with our young scientists!

If you'd  prefer a small batch recipe for one to four kids to work on, I have provided that below:

Moon Sand - Small batch
Mix 3 cups flour with 1/3 cup vegetable oil. Mix with hands.  Add additional oil - one tablespoon at a time - until desired texture is achieved.