Art Meets Science: Raku Pottery

On Tuesday, March 17, the 7th and 8th grade science students had the opportunity to fire pottery in a raku kiln with the assistance of Mr. and Mrs. Laury, OLS parents who also teach art at Chaminade.

In preparation for the lesson, the students made cylinders out of raku clay.  The cylinders were fired in the electric kiln in the art room by Mrs. McGrath.  The students then applied a copper glaze to the cylinders, which made them ready for the final firing.

Why is this science?

The raku kiln is heated to 1800 degrees F.  The pottery is then placed in the kiln for about 15 minutes.  Once they are glowing, the pieces are ready to be taken out of the kiln.   The appearance of the glazed part of the pottery is green as one would see on an old penny.  After the kiln, the cylinder was immediately placed in a bucket with shreded newspaper.  The hot pottery caused the paper to catch on fire, and Mr. and Mrs. Laury immediately put a lid on the bucket to extinguish it.  However, the fire looked for oxygen to continue burning and took it from both the clay and the glaze causing them to change in appearance: the clay turned black and the glaze became shiny.  The cylinders were carefully removed from the buckets and placed in very cold water causing an immediate thermal reduction, making the glaze shine. After cooling, the cylinders were cleaned and polished. 

This video shows a snippet of the process as the cylinders are moved from the newspaper-filled bucket into the cold water bath:

Special thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Laury for their time and expertise and for making this lesson possible!