A sweet treat for your Valentine

There is a special holiday fast approaching next week, and if you need a little something for that special person in your life, we need to get started right away, as this experiment could take a few days to produce some results. Quickly gather the materials below, many of you should have them in your cupboard already. Let’s get started!

Remember to ask an adult before doing this experiment.

Materials

• Scissors

• Medium saucepan

• Measuring cups

• Package of red or pink unsweetened drink mix

• White sugar

• Water

• Wooden spoon

• Wooden skewers

• Empty glass jar with a lid

• Nail

• Spray bottle

• Hotplate or stove

• Science helper

Procedure

• An adult must help you with this experiment.

• Using a nail, poke several holes randomly in the lid of the jar. Take the time to measure and ensure the holes are big enough to push the wooden skewers through it. Note; if the skewers are too long, have an adult help you trim them up carefully using scissors.

• The wooden skewer should not rest on the bottom of the jar once you put the lid on.

• Leave the skewers in the lid, remove from the jar.

• Lightly spritz the skewers with water and sprinkle them with a little bit of sugar. This is very important as you are creating a seed.

• Measure 250 mL (one cup) of water. Pour into the saucepan.

• Measure 750 mL (three cups) of sugar and add to the water.

• Stir in the powdered sugar free drink mix.

• Using a wooden spoon carefully stir everything well.

• Have an adult help you put the mixture on the stove over medium heat. Stir the mixture constantly. You may notice not all of the sugar has dissolved. This is just fine, as you’ve made a supersaturated solution. Do not worry!

• Once the mixture boils, remove it from the heat. Be careful, it is like molten lava – do not burn yourself.

• Once the mixture has cooled, have an adult pour some into the glass jar – about half full.

• Take the lid with the skewer and place it gently in the jar.

• Don’t tighten the lid; just let it sit loosely on the mouth of the jar.

• Observe your skewer every day to see what is happening.

• In a couple of days you will be amazed!

• Enjoy once you have enough sugar crystals on the skewer. The longer you wait, the more delicious crystals there will be!

• Share with your Valentines! What is going on?

You probably have seen these in the stores as they look like little suckers with little rocks on them. They are delicious and who knew it involved science?

In this experiment, you made sugar crystals! You started out by creating a super saturated solution of sugar and water. No matter how hard you tried, you could not get any more sugar to dissolve into the water. As the water evaporates, the solution becomes more and more saturated with sugar molecules. These sugar molecules need somewhere to grow so this is why it was important that you had some sugar on your skewer before you put it into the solution. These seed crystals allowed the sugar molecules somewhere to grab onto and start growing. The rock candy crystals will continue to grow molecule by molecule.

Patty Rooks, Senior Scientific Consultant PRAXIS, “Connecting Science To The Community”. Contact Praxis at praxis@praxismh.ca, www.praxismh.ca, Tweet or follow us @PraxisMedHat, or friend us on Facebook. Address: #12 826 11 Street S. E., Medicine Hat, Alberta, T1A 1T7 Phone: 403.527.5365, email: praxis@praxismh.ca.