Print your own fingers! - What is a fingerprint? (Experiment)

It’s very easy to make your own fingerprints at home, and there are a few different ways you can try it!

One way is to get some special ink that is safe for using on your hands, and to roll your fingers across the ink pad and then onto a piece of paper. 

Or, if you don’t have the right kind of ink, you can also use a graphite pencil and some regular clear scotch tape! Use the pencil to color a solid block onto a piece of paper. Roll you finger over this solid block of color so that your finger picks up some of the graphite’s color. Then, stick the clear tape to the finger you rolled in graphite and pull away gently – viola! Your fingerprint will be stuck to the sticky side of the tape! To make your prints really show up, stick the fingerprinted tape to a piece of light-colored paper.

What do your fingerprints look like? Compare them to one of your friend’s fingerprints. Do you have tall loops and lines or shorter, arched edges?