Grow Some Rock Candy
Ages 4 and up with adult help
The kitchen is a great place to practice your science skills, including this tasty experiment to learn about chemistry! In order to make rock candy, we need to grow sugar crystals from a supersaturated solution. A supersaturated solution means there is more sugar than the water could normally hold, which means the sugar molecules have a higher chance of finding each other, and combining in an orderly pattern that makes a crystal. By boiling the water, and then letting it evaporate, we make it easy for those molecules to find each other and really get growing.
Materials
- Cake pop
- Stick
- 1 cup water
- 2-3 cups sugar
- 1 Tbsp. food coloring
- 1 medium-sized pot
- 2 Mason jars
- Clothespin
Directions
- Dip the stick in water and then coat the lower 3/4ths in a thin layer of sugar.
- Set the stick aside to dry until the sugar is hardened.
- In the meantime, add 1 cup of water to a medium-sized pot and bring to a simmer on low heat.
- Add in about 2-3 cups sugar a little at time, stirring as you go. Wait to add more sugar until what you have put in is completely dissolved.
- Continue until the sugar is no longer dissolving in the water.
- Add in 1 Tbsp. of desired food coloring and stir until the mixture is a uniform color.
- Pour the mixture into a mason jar and let cool for about 30 minutes.
- Attach a clothespin to the end of your stick without sugar on it and lower it into the mason jar (make sure the stick isn’t touching the bottom of the jar).
- Store in a safe place and let sit for 3-5 days.
- Transfer the stick to another mason jar and let dry.
- Remove the clothespin once the candy is dried and enjoy!
More fun
- Learn more about Crystals here
- Spill some salt and sugar on a surface, keeping them mostly separate. Use a magnifying glass to observe the different grains of salt and sugar. Does the shape of the individual grains look different?
