Halloween Science

Halloween is one of my very favorite holidays. I live for things that glow in the dark and all the creepy crawlies!  Yes, I am that kind of girl.

Last year I challenged you to sink and float your Halloween candy. This is especially fun when you have kids with food or ingredient allergies and can't eat it anyway. Save yourself some calories and do science with candy.

Here are three simple experiments to do with your candy. I put links on the questions so you can get all the details.

1. What candy sinks and what floats? Make your predictions and then start testing them.  Since they only were in water, you can still eat them,

2. Do the Ms or Ss on M&Ms and Skittles float off?  This is kinda creepy so it is perfect for this time of year.

3. What candy is really the sourest?  Put candy to the acid test and see what candy foams the most by dissolving in water and then adding baking soda.

Have fun!!

Halloween III

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I love sour flavors. My daughter is right there with me so it was difficult for her to part with sour candy. But part with it she did. We gathered all the sour candy including funny sour french fries. We added a quarter cup of water to each candy and let them sit long enough to dissolve. Only Nerds really dissolved, everything else just started to melt. We predicted the sour patch kids would be the most acidic candy since it tasted the most sour.

Then we added 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda. The more acidic the candy, the greater the fizzing will be. The  smarties gave a nice fizz. It didn't last very long though.

Nerds fizzed a lot and for a very long time.

The french fries fizzed a lot at first but not for long.

The sour grape was a dud. It barely fizzed at all.

The sour patch kids fizzed well and for a long time.

The super sour jaw breaker fizzed a lot but didn't hold it's fizz. Once the outside coating was dissolved, it pretty much stopped fizzing.

In the end, our prediction was not correct. Nerds fizzed the longest and the most. We all talked about why this might be and decided that it was because they were also the smallest candy and was the only one to really dissolve in the water. Next time, we could crush them all or cut them up so they dissolved in the water.

Guess what we are doing next year!!

Float and Sink Halloween Style II

Testing the floating and sinking of candy is a fun way to play with candy.  Your dentist would totally approve.

At the top of the picture you can see all the wrappers from the candy in the tray. We used starburst (strawberry), snickers, butterfingers, a mini jawbreaker and 3musketeers. The 3Musketeers is the only candy that floated (lower left corner).

We ended up trying all kinds of candy and crowding the pan. Eventually the water turned brown with the dissolving chocolate and candy coatings. In the end only 3Musketeers floated.

Science Moment: If you break apart a 3Musketeers bar you will see that it is whipped and frothy inside. The air bubbles help to create buoyancy. The candy is positively buoyant - it is less dense than the amount of water it displaced. Here is a nice blog written for older kids with some experiments on buoyancy.

Next we thought we'd test an urban legend  We had heard legend that the "s" on skittles floated so we tried both skittles and M&Ms to see if the letters floated off.  The yellow and blue are M&Ms and the red and green are skittles. The candy coating melts off quickly.

And the "s" really does come off of skittles and float. 

And so does the "m" on an M&M!

Tomorrow I will tell you all about the other ways we played with candy!

Sink and Float - Halloween Style

Tomorrow we are going to start some simple experiments with Halloween candy. We are going to see what floats and what sinks. There are still a few spots open, so call the library if you want to join us.  We will be sinking and floating other things too!

Floating and sinking is a basic experiment and a good place to start.  But don't let me stop you from trying other things such as melting and testing acidity. Here is a link to a list of really cool ways to get started testing candy. In our town since voting is done at a school, they turn it into a teacher work day and a day off for the kids, so I will have my kids home. Do you think they will let me play with their candy?