I am beginning to think that Allie associates doing science with eating candy. I guess there are worse things – ha! The other day she said, “Mom, can we do an experiment?” while she was eyeing a box of Valentine candy hearts!
How could I resist? Candy hearts were always one of my favorite candy as a kid. They are to Valentine’s Day what candy corn is to Halloween. So why not mix science and candy together and make a candy heart experiment!?
I reached for my good ole’ gingerale and told her we were going to see if candy hearts would float or sink. We did a similar experiment with raisins here.
Allie carefully selected each heart color, we read them together, and tossed them in a fizzy glass of gingerale!
Here’s what happened.
The gingerale’s bubbles attached to some of the candy hearts creating little “life-jackets”. These little bubble “life-jackets” made the hearts more bouyant until they came to the surface and popped. Then the hearts would sink back to the bottom. It was a simple fun experiment! (Experiment disclaimer: some of the hearts sunk and stayed at the bottom. Sounds like a future experiment is in order!)
I hope you have an amazing Valentine’s Day mixing candy and science!
Sweet Hearts and science. I love it.