Dancing Valentine Hearts Candy Experiment

Bubbles attach to conversation hearts, making them bob up and down in club soda.



What you need:

• Conversation hearts such as Brach's or Sweethearts
  (avoid Brach's Heart2Heart candies)
• Bottle of clear soda pop or club soda

What to do:

1. Open the bottle of club soda
2. Drop the hearts into the bottle and put the lid back on.
   (Variation: pour the soda into a glass and drop in the hearts.)
3. Watch the hearts rise to the surface and then sink.
4. Tap or shake the bottle to make the hearts sink again.
5. If the hearts don't float, break or chop a few hearts into small pieces and try again.

What’s happening:
The rough surface of a conversation heart provides perfect places for bubbles to form (nucleation sites). When the heart is dropped in club soda, the carbon dioxide dissolved in the water forms bubbles that make the hearts rise. If you shake the glass to knock the bubbles off of the hearts, the hearts sink again.



From the book Candy Experiments by Loralee Leavitt