Sweet and Simple Science! Gummy Bears Experiment

Happy Sweetest Day friends! Since I am thinking about sweets... I thought I'd share a sweet little lesson from last week. What better time to do activities having to do with candy than in the month of October? We decided to do some simple science with gummy bears!

The question was asked..

 What will happen when we place a gummy bear in a cup of water overnight?

All you need for this experiment is a package of Haribo brand Gummy Bears, some water and small cups. How easy is that? 

These containers from Target were the perfect size. 

So before we plopped the gummy bears in our cups of water, the students made all kinds of great predictions (they are learning the word hypothesis... but haven't been able to say it without a lisp yet)!

Many thought it would melt, so we clarified the difference between melting and dissolving. Others thought it would get slimy. A few predicted it would change color. One student had done this before and she was sworn to secrecy. 

But no one predicted what would actually happen!

Our bear turned into a mini Jello mold!

As we conducted the experiment, the students recorded the steps of the scientific method. They drew pictures of their observations and listed the steps to the experiment. 

You can grab a copy of this lab sheet here if you think you may want to try this with your class. 

My blossoming scientists were so excited to see their gummy bears and make more observations the next day.

A great variation on this experiment would be to try out different liquids to see what the results would be. You might also repeat it with a different brand of gummy bears to see if all gummies are created equally!

I hope you got some sweet inspiration here today. 

This was a fun and easy way to practice the scientific method.

Maybe give it a try some time!

 I will be back here again tomorrow morning.

Please join me!

 I've got a few SURPRISES in the works for you!

:)