Bubbling Zotz

Zotz candies bubble when you bite into their super-sour center. Try this Zotz candy experiment to learn why.



What you need:

• Zotz candy
• bowl of water
• table knife or tool to smash Zotz

What to do:

1. Unwrap the Zotz and put candy in water.
2. Use the knife handle to crack the candy. Does the candy start fizzing?

What's happening:
A look at the ingredient list reveals why the candy fizzes. Besides sugar and corn syrup, colors, and flavors, the candy contains malic acid, tartaric acid, and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). When you crack the candy to let in the water, the acids react with the sodium bicarbonate to produce the carbon dioxide bubbles. It's the same reaction that you have with a vinegar and baking soda volcano.

Next time you try Zotz candy, remember to enjoy the bubbles. You're eating a self-contained acid test!

If you can't view the video, here's my six-year-old's illustration of the process.

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

Cold Water Comets With M&M's

Use cold water currents to make M&M’s into comets!

What you need:

• clear glass baking dish (9 x 13 inch or larger recommended)
• warm water
• ice pack, or zip bag full of ice

What to do:

1. Fill the dish with about 1 inch of warm water
2. Place the ice pack at one end of the dish
3. Place a few M&M’s in the water near the ice pack
4. Watch the color spread. Does it make a comet tail?

What’s happening:
The ice pack cools the water around it, making it denser. The denser water sinks to the bottom of the pan. This pushes the bottom layer of water towards the other side of the pan, carrying the dissolving candy color along. The white coating underneath the candy shell adds white streaks as it dissolves.

Variations

• To make a comet without using ice, place the M&M’s on one side of the dish, then lift the edge of the dish and slide a towel underneath to prop it up. Gravity will pull the dense sugar water downhill, making a comet.
• If you don’t have M&M’s handy, try this with food coloring.

From the book Candy Experiments
Idea adapted from the book Awesome Ocean Science by Cindy Littlefield

Christmas candy cane optical illusion?

Can you slice a candy cane in half without touching it?

What you need:

• clear glass
• candy cane or candy stick
• water
• oil

What to do:

1. Pour water into the glass.
2. Pour oil into the glass to make layer about 1 inch deep.
3. Put the candy cane in the glass and rotate it. When you turn it, does the candy cane seem to come apart?

What's happening:
Water, oil, and air each slow down light a little bit differently. This means that the light bends a little bit where the air meets the oil, and where the oil meets the water. The result? A candy cane that looks chainsawed into segments.

From the book Candy Experiments 2 by Loralee Leavitt

Diving Warheads

Does a Warhead sink? Or does it float? This candy experiment shows you how to make a Warhead do both when you make a Cartesian diver candy experiment.
What you need:

• small plastic bottle of water
• wrapped Warheads candies(don't unwrap!)

What to do:

1. Open a bottle of water and push the wrapped Warhead inside.
2. Make sure the Warhead floats. If you put it in the bottle and it sinks immediately, try another one. (Some Warhead packages don't contain enough air to float.)
3. Fill the bottle completely full, so that there are no air bubbles at the top. Any extra air bubbles will make the Warhead harder to sink.
4. Screw the bottle cap on tightly, or you'll send water shooting everywhere.
5. Squeeze the bottle and see if you can make the Warhead sink!

What's happening:
Warheads sink. Air bubbles float. A Warhead inside an airtight wrapper does both...if you squeeze it hard enough to compress the air bubble. This makes the candy wrapper package denser than the water, and it sinks. But if you release the bottle, the bubble expands and the candy floats again!

This science demonstration is called a Cartesian diver, named after French philosopher and scientist René Descartes. You can also try making a Cartesian diver with ketchup packets, eyedroppers, or other items that trap air bubbles.

As featured in Scout Life magazine

From the book Candy Experiments 2 by Loralee Leavitt

Acid Test

This experiment was invented by Loralee Leavitt.  Please do not copy, sell, post, publish, or distribute all or any part of this material without my permission. Instead, feel free to link to this website, and to contact me with questions.

Sour taste is the body's way of identifying acid, so if your candy tastes sour, it contains acid.

Pixy Stix acid test:
adding baking soda causes bubbles

To test for acid yourself, try this:

What you need:

• Fruit-flavored or sour candy, such as LemonHeads, Nerds, WARHEADS, or sour gummy candy
• Baking soda

What to do:

1. Dissolve the candy in a small amount of warm water (about a half-cup or less). For hard candy like Smarties, you may want to crush it first to make it dissolve faster.
2. Sprinkle a spoonful of baking soda into water.
3. Watch for bubbles.  If it bubbles, the candy is acidic.

What's happening: 
When you dissolve acidic candy in water and add baking soda, the reaction produces carbon dioxide gas.  This is what makes the bubbles.

For more fun, try testing candy like Skittles, StarBursts, or Sweet Tarts.  Do these candies contain as much acid as really sour candies?

*If the candy is taking too long to dissolve, try crushing it first.  You can also get quick results using Pixy Stix or candy covered by sour powder.

Video results: watch acid tests on Youtube

• Nerds
• Lemonheads
• Pixy Stix
• Air Heads 

Explanation based on author's interview with Walter Bowyer, chemistry professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges


From the book Candy Experiments by Loralee Leavitt

Chocolate Bloom

Please do not copy, sell, post, publish, or distribute all or any part of this material without the author's permission. Instead, feel free to link to this website, and to contact me with questions.

Chocolate is made of cocoa butter, cocoa solids, and other ingredients that have been mixed together.    Can you take them apart?

Chocolate after several weeks in a warm car

What you need:

• Chocolate candy (dark works better)
• Heat

What to do:

1. Heat your chocolate in a sunny windowsill, with a hair dryer, in a microwave, or in a low oven, until it starts to melt.  (Chocolate melts fast--if it doesn't look melted, poke it to check.)
2. Let it cool overnight or in the refrigerator.
3. Repeat these steps until you see light brown spots or streaks.  (This may take several heating attempts.)

What's happening:
When the chocolate heats and cools, some of the fat pushes out past the solid particles and forms into white crystals.  This causes the light spots and streaks, which are known as chocolate bloom.*


*See Becket, S. T.  The Science of Chocolate, 2nd Edition.  The Royal Society of Chemistry: Cambridge, UK. 2008, pg 103, 109, 116-117

From the book Candy Experiments by Loralee Leavitt