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Easter typically involves candy, and we got some science experiment mileage out of it by seeing what we could do with our candy other than eat it! First, we microwaved jelly beans and gummy bears. The jelly beans (above) developed an interesting stringy texture (photo above), while the gummy bears melted quickly into a shapeless, jello-type glob:
Then the kids, of course, wanted to repeat our growing gummy candy experiment! They decided to see if stirring the gummy bears would speed up the process:
It didn’t seem to make any difference, apart from making the bears a little worse for the wear and tear (Lily’s wound up disintegrating, possibly due to fork-inflicted wounds). But there was a beautifully dramatic difference the next morning:
We didn’t have any Peeps in the house to experiment with, but they are highly entertaining science material – just check out this fabulous series of Peep Experiments at Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas.
Want to combine candy and math? Here’s a simple statistics experiment that will stump most adults!
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Any experiments that involve candy are fun, especially if you can still eat it afterwards……
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What a great way to use up the Easter candy without eating it! Thankfully Joshua moved up to the status of hiding eggs this year for the little ones so we didn’t have near as much candy as we’ve had in the past.
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Candy experiments are on my “to do” list. Growing gummy bears are fun, except I wouldn’t want to eat them afterwards!
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maryanne Reply:
April 11th, 2012 at 12:28 pm
My kids do always eat them – can’t say they look super appetizing, though :)
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Great idea and a much better use for candy than me eating it all. LOL! Pinning this! Vicky from http://www.messforless.net
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Great ideas – have to see if we have any candy left!
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Those look so fun! My kids would love it.
Sandy
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Hello again :) Thanks for visiting my little blog, I’m so glad you did because I forgot to subscribe to yours yesterday and then I couldn’t remember where I found it! Crazy interweb.
FYI I tried to follow your twitter but the little button on the top right doesn’t seem to have a link.
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maryanne Reply:
April 11th, 2012 at 4:49 pm
Thanks for telling me about the twitter problem! The button should work now!
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We have yet to try the gummy bear experiment. I wish we would have done some experimenting with Easter candy instead of eating it all lol ;)
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These look fun! The detail on the grown-up gummy bear is amazing… Who knew they had teeth?
Visit Elisa | blissfulE … burlap and brick dust
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Thats the best candy idea ever…experiment with it!
Visit sherri … Santorum
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Science and sweets! Now thats our kind of science!
Brilliant.
Thank you for sharing on Science Sparks.
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hmmm…. that’s really interesting. i had no idea that gummy bears would do that!
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maryanne Reply:
April 16th, 2012 at 3:13 pm
Any gummy candy will work – they expand as they absorb the water slowly through osmosis. It’s probably my kids’ favorite science experiment!
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We love candy experiments, too. One of my favorites at Easter is just dropping candy into a bowl of water, because so much Easter candy floats (Peeps, marshmallow eggs, Whopper eggs, etc.) I’ll have to try microwaving gummy bears, that looks fun.
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What a fun idea! My children would LOVE it! Thanks so much for linking to Science Sparks! xx
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[...] Fun Science: Candy Experiments « mama smiles [...]
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Looks fun and yum!!! We should try this as well!
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MaryAnne Reply:
January 26th, 2013 at 11:12 am
It is a lot of fun, and very simple :)
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Looks fun and yum!!! We should try this as well!
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Perfect idea – I think I will do this with some leftover Valentine candy.
Visit Jen Fischer … {2 for 1} Weekly Kid’s Co-Op + Project 101: Weekly Library Challenge
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