Our fifth grader wanted to know which candy would dissolve the fastest in water. Check out what happened in our candy experiment.

The Candy Experiment

Mommy Crusader Family Fun, School, Science in Action, STEAM 17 Comments

My fifth grader came home the other day all excited. She’d apparently just had a fantastic science class and wanted to do a science project at home. We’d just been to the store, and I had purchased a few pounds of candy. She decided to see which type of candy would dissolve in water the fastest and how long it would take for all the candy to dissolve. Without further ado, here is her project — the candy experiment.

Materials

We started by selecting which candies to test. She decided to use a Starburst, Skittle, Tootsie Roll, and Smartie. She placed them in about ¼ cup of water each and left them to sit.

Hypothesis

My fifth grader thought at the beginning that the Smartie would be the first to dissolve. She said she thought the Smartie would be the first to dissolve because of how fast a Smartie dissolves in her mouth. She also thought the Skittle would take the longest to dissolve because of how much she has to chew a Skittle to eat it.

Skittles

After about two minutes in, the Skittle had lost its outer coating. After about 13 minutes about half of the Skittle had dissolved. After about 25 minutes of sitting in the water, the Skittle had completely dissolved. It was the first of the candies to dissolve in the water.

Tootsie Roll

The next candy to dissolve completely was the Tootsie Roll. The Tootsie Roll started dissolving almost immediately, but seemed to slow considerably. At about eight minutes, we could no longer see into the Tootsie Roll’s water and thought it was dissolved, but reaching in with a spoon, we found it was still 2/3 of its original size. At 20 minutes in, only about 1/3 of the Tootsie Roll was left. The Tootsie Roll was completely dissolved after 42 minutes.

Smartie

The Smartie was the next candy to dissolve. Although, how it dissolved was really surprising to us all. After 21 minutes, the Smartie appeared unchanged. The water was clear, and it appeared to have not changed at all. At the 25 minute mark, though, we found out that the Smartie was dissolving from the inside out. We reached in a spoon to take pictures of all the candies at this point. When we did, several pieces of the Smartie broke off.  However, it wasn’t until minute 55 that the Smartie had completely dissolved.  It was our third candy to dissolve.

Starburst

The candy which took the longest to dissolve was, surprisingly, the Starburst. At minute 21, the water holding the Starburst was also so cloudy that the Starburst was difficult to see.  But, by minute 31 only half the Starburst had dissolved. By minute 55, the Starburst was down to 1/3 of its original size.  The Starburst just kept on dissolving. It wasn’t until 117 minutes, or 1 hour and 57 minutes, that the Starburst had completely dissolved.

Results

Conclusion

My fifth grader was very surprised by the way the candy dissolved. Honestly, so was I. We both expected the Smartie, which is made up of sugar, to dissolve the quickest, and would not have guessed that it was the Skittle which would win the dissolving race. The best part about this experiment for me was watching my daughter be excited about finding the answer. This experiment was her design and her idea. She was curious and figured out a way to satisfy that curiousity.

Have you done any fun science investigations with your children lately?  I’d love to hear about it if you have.

 

Comments 17

  1. Yay! Awesome job! She had a great hypothesis, I would have guessed the Smartie would dissolve first too. We will have to do this. If she’s up for the challenge…What happens if you dissolve the same candies in Sprite or soda water?

    We did a science party at the beginning of August, and one of the favorite stations was mixing pop rocks with blue Hawaiian punch! The kids loved it!

    1. Post
      Author
      1. Oh my goodness, that would be fun! I’ve never hosted a linky before so I need to read up on how to do it, but yes! I would even be game for a monthly feature if others are interested. Let’s brain storm! Email me and we can make a plan 🙂
        yahudi17 @ yahoo dot com

        1. Post
          Author
  2. I would have guessed Smartie would be first too. It surprises me that the tootsie roll dissolved faster than the Smartie. What a neat project. It would be neat to try different liquids and see if the results are different.

    My first grade class 2 years ago did a science fair project in which we placed pennies in different liquids to see which one cleaned them best. Some of our results were surprising too. Science is awesome!

    1. Post
      Author

      It was so much fun to watch her excitement. After her project was done I was forever finding glasses with candy and water in them from the other kids’ science experiments. It was a fantastic week. Thanks for sharing. 🙂

        1. Post
          Author
  3. That is a really fun science project. I can see how interested your daughter was by her expressions. That is wonderful. And, like your daughter, and the others who have commented, I too would have guessed that the Smartie would dissolve first. I learned something new!

    1. Post
      Author

      Thanks! I thought it was so great to share such an organic teaching moment with her. And she lasted at it longer than I did. I was done keeping track of time for the Starburst, but she just kept keeping the records. It was the highlight of my week. Thanks for coming by and sharing.

    1. Post
      Author
  4. i did a project like this for a thing called pace. the only difference was i used sprite tell your daughter great job! and keep up the good work!

  5. I’m doing this for science fair and for the Bibliography part of my poster,I need to state your name/author of this website and I’d really appreciate if you could reply to me this information.

    1. Post
      Author

Leave a Reply