Abstract by Daniel T.

My science fair project was about “Which Manure Will Make the Pottery the Darkest.” This idea came to me when would it be possible if horse manure can work just like cow manure in turning the pottery darker then the sheep manure?

My purpose is to find out what the differences are between sheep, cow, and horse manure. Which manure will turn the pottery darker? I wondered if my family ever tried using these animal manure before because most Pueblo Indians in Santa Clara use cow manure.

I hypothesized during the firing of the pottery that horse manure will turn the pottery darker compared to the sheep and the cow manure. This oxidation process is just to see if animal manure such as horse, cow and sheep will provide making the pottery a darker color.

The materials use are clay mixture, pottery pots, polishing stones, brush, tin covering, wood chips, food cans, boards, sheep manure, horse manure, sticks, water, matches, and rack.

Procedures included: gathering my material, making my pottery from the clay mixture, and shaping and finishing eight pots. Next, it took one day for drying all eight pots. Next, I sanded each pot and polish them right after that. I coated on a slip mixture over each pot and polished all the pots again. Right after that, I started the fire outside and place a pot at a time, and let it fire at different times. One pot was taken out after five minutes, the next pot went in for ten minutes, and the last pot went in for fifteen minutes using sheep manure. Next, I repeated the same steps and record the finding of what happen while using horse manure this time around.

There are two graphs shows the time it took for each pot to complete the firing process, and each pot was taken at a different time. Each graph shows how the pots turned out after oxidation from sheep, cow and horse manure.