Experiments at the Children's Desk - Gummy Bear Science

This past week, we've been having a lot of fun in the youth services department. We're conducting experiments in our programs and at our desk now, too! Throughout the summer, we will have a rotating display of different science experiments and projects on display. First, we decided to see what would happen if we let gummy bears soak overnight in four different liquids: water, vinegar, water with baking soda, and saltwater.

We got the idea from the Science for Kids blog. The detailed work of measurement and worksheets would be better suited for an ongoing program, in the classroom, or at home, so we put our own spin on the activity. We lined up the bottles with the different liquids and taped down the normal gummy bears so that our young scientists could look at the differences in size, shape, and texture overtime. Children, parents, and caregivers made observations throughout the day and hypothesized about what might become of the soaking bears. The results were slightly tragic--most of them dissolved after about 24 hours! Our bears were completely immersed in air-tight bottles, which may have made our experiment slightly different from other results found on the web.

The bears in water, salt water, and vinegar all tinted their liquids with their respective colors, whereas the water and baking soda mixture remained quite translucent.

 The only gummy bear that survived was in the salt water, and he was quite inflated and jiggly!