Science with Candy

This is some of my Halloween candy.  You can do awesome experiments with your Halloween candy.

In this experiment, you can get many colours out of a bag of m&m's.

Once you get all the colours painted on a piece of paper, the dye in the colours might start to separate if you add water.

This is a smartie experiment.  If you use a small sieve and rinse the smarties, you can see how the colour washes off.

If you soak the smarties in a glass of water, you can get colours like this,

and this!

Colours and letters will soak off skittles too.  Look very closely for the floating 'S':

Hint: it's between the orange and red skittles.

Next, my caramel experiment.

For this experiment, I soaked caramels in warm water, cold water, and vinegar with baking soda.

The hot water is the mushed up one; the one soaked in cold water has the deeper lines; and the one from the vinegar and baking soda dissolved the little bumps.

Next, an experiment to see which chocolate bars will float.

We found that the kit kat and aero bars floated because they have air bubbles inside.  The crunchie, oh henry, caramilk, and hershey bar all sank.

Then we stirred them around in hot water.  The aero and the hershey bar dissolved completely.

See if you can guess which the others are:

Another experiment with m&m's showed us that you can paint with them.

Dip them in water for a few seconds, and use a paintbrush in the colour or just hold them in your fingers and draw with them like crayons.

For my last experiment, vinegar and baking soda takes the colour off m&m's and smarties quicker than just regular warm water. 

In this photo, you can see the carnauba wax floating at the top of the glass.  That's the glossy glaze put on candies to make them shiny.

Secret Writing

Here's how to make invisible writing:

First, you need lemon juice.  One lemon works fine.  Then add three or four drops of water and stir.

Dip a Q-tip into this and write with it on a piece of paper. 

Once you're done writing on it, let it dry.

But don't hang it on  the clothesline.  It might blow away. ha ha ha.

To read the message, you have to hold it very close to a hot element like a candle, a hot lightbulb, or the stove.  Make sure it doesn't catch on fire.  Keep some water close by.

This is my map.  I won't show you the rest of it, otherwise you'll find my treasure. ;)

Dissolving Chalk

Using vinegar, lemon juice, and water, I am experimenting with dissolving chalk.  So if chalk has been mean to you, put it in vinegar or lemon juice.  They seem to work the best.  Watch for final results, which will be posted soon.

Update- Results:  Lemon was the most corrosive, vinegar came in second, and water hardly did anything.