Myth-Buster Mania

This summer at Summer Camp I teach the Aim High program (special needs students) in the morning and I have the 6th/7th graders in the afternoon. Afternoons are pretty unstructured, so we can incorporate whatever activities we want: computers, games, free time, silent reading, playing outside, etc. I love Science, so I decided to spice things up with some interactive experiments. I'm calling it, "Myth Buster Mania."

For our first myth we tackled the important question: Can you make the "S" on the skittles candies float?

Before I did this with the kids I actually demonstrated it for the other teachers because they didn't believe me. They were pretty amazed when it worked, so I figured if adults got a kick out of it, then the kids would love it!

Each group of students got cups of water and 6 varieties of skittles. They had a piece of paper to record whether or not the S floated, and how long it took.

Here is a picture of our first success.

Students hard at work.

I think the kids favorite part (aside from the whole floating of the "S") was eating the skittles and drinking the colorful sugar water afterwards.

Our assortment of skittles colors.

Another successful attempt

Uh oh! Now the sugar is kicking in!!

All in all it was a lot of fun and I think it shows the kids how much fun (and delicious) science can be!

On Monday we are going to explode some Diet Coke with Mentos. If you want a good laugh, go to YouTube and type in "coke and mentos" there are some seriously funny videos out there. Some people even take it to the extreme by making coke and mentos rockets. Check it out!