Candy Experiments
by Loralee Leavitt
Andrews McMeel Publishing
U.S.: $14.99 Canada: $16.99
ISBN: 9781449418366
Format: Paperback
On Sale: January 1, 2013
Category: Cookbook – Baking and Desserts – Cooking with Kids
With a title like Candy Experiments, you know these will grab kids’
attention. Subject matter is clearly
chemistry and biology where they overlap (and also includes brief allusions to
astronomy, geology, and physics: comets,
rock formation, and gas laws, respectively).
Most of the experiments in here are not quantitative, so the book is primarily
aimed at grade school students (including your young precocious ones or
possibly a sweet-toothed youth whom you’d like to see grow a deeper fondness
for science) and junior high as well if terms are taught as part of the
experiments.
What’s nice about these experiments is that they explore the edges of a
topic. It does not just deliver the
take-home message (i.e. candy has acid in it), but it also discusses ramifications
such as, for instance, in the acid-in-candy experiment, it mentions damage to
teeth, the formation of carbon dioxide and how that impacts cooking. They even make a cabbage indicator to check
for acidity.
Types of experiments:
- · Acidity (checked with baking soda)
- · Miscibility
- · Separation
- · Density (liquids and solids)
- · Dispersion
- · Chromatography (paper)
- · Convection (& factor determining -- unequal temperatures)
- · Chemicals break down due to sunlight
- · Solubility
- · Gas Laws: Temperature’s effect on volume, pressure on volume
- · Chemical properties (gelatin, sugar)
- · Crystal shape and formation
- · Election and light emission
- · Solids and liquids (properties)
- · Enthalpy of solution or heat of solution
- · Capillary action/adhesion
- · Hygroscopy
- · Rate of dissolution and reaction (factors determining--heat, surface area)
If you wanted students to learn some of these terms, you’d want to
incorporate them with your regular textbook.
Unfortunately, the above terms are not used in this book or are not
thoroughly explained, which may indicate this book is more for the grade school
student. An issue that should probably
be addressed--since both melting and dissolving are introduced but not
explained--is the difference between melting and dissolving. Most students do not know that there is a
difference and confuse the two.
A number of these experiments could easily be made quantitative by the
enterprising upper-level instructor who would like to increase interest-level
of his class (most kids do love candy).
For example, use titrations with a known concentration of a base to see
how much acid is inside the candy. Density
experiments could include weight and volume measurements with subsequent
calculations.
All in all, this book is ideal for the grade-school student and for
instructors looking to increase student interest using something that young
people have a natural affinity for.
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