Gummy Bear Science

Yesterday, Tuesday, is science day here at preschool home-school. I went to my favorite resource, Pinterest, and looked up fun science experiments. There are tons of cool choices, and yes, I've made a pin board for future classes and ideas. 

The Gummy Bear absorbtion experiment was the one we could do with supplies here at home. 

Luckily, the gummy bears that we had on-hand were from the Carter administration, so they were adequately prepared to take on a good bit of water for a drastic change.

The hardest part of the experiment was keeping the little's hands off them, keeping them from eating the control group, keeping them from eating the experiment, and keeping them from stirring the gummy bears.

I used a clear plastic reusable container and put a few inches of cool tap water in it. Then placed the rock solid (they honestly made a thump sound when they hit the bottom) gummy bears into the water. 

The 5 year old and 3 year old were really very good about the experiment. They would go running to check on it every 30 minutes or so, exclaim over what they saw, then go back to building with their blocks or coloring.

I started to throw it out last night after they went to bed, thinking they would dissolve completely in the water over night, but I didn't throw them away, and they didn't dissolve. The picture above is from the next morning. Both kids were very excited to see what happened over night, and we're very impressed with how much water they had absorbed.

The very next thing they said was, "can we eat them now?". 

We also learned that gummy bears that have been soaked in water for about 20 hours are very soft and squishy.

And slippery!

They're pretty hard to pick up, in fact.

VERY HARD to pick up.

Mommy ended up helping...

And then they were gone. The control group was left. Both little's wanted to try to eat them, but both spit them out. I would have to guess we were more along the side of the consistency of Jolly Rancher's than gummy bears, at this point in their life cycle.

So there we have the gummy bear absorbtion experiment. I need to pick up food coloring for next weeks class, so keep an eye out for our color experiments.

Have fun, and remember to play with your food!