Make Your Own Rock Candy

I remember making these when I was in elementary school, and it was a great science experiement that we got to eat at the end! What is better than that?

What You Will Need:

• A wooden skewer (chopsticks work too)
• A clothespin
• 1 cup of water
• 2-3 cups of sugar
• a tall narrow glass or jar

How You Make It:

• Clip the wooden skewer into the clothespin so that it hands down inside the glass and is about 1 inch from the bottom of the glass.
• Remove the skewer and clothespin and put them aside for now.
• (With the help of an adult) Pour the water into a pan and bring it to boil.
• Pour about 1/4 cup of sugar into the boiling water, stirring until it dissolves.
• Keep adding more and more sugar, each time stirring it until it dissolves, until no more will dissolve. This will take time and patience and it will take longer for the sugar to dissolve each time.Be sure you don't give up too soon. Once no more sugar will dissolve, remove it from heat and allow it to cool for at least 20 minutes. 
•  Have your adult carefully pour the sugar solution into the jar almost to the top. Then submerge the skewer back into the glass making sure that it is hanging straight down the middle without touching the sides.\
• Allow the jar to fully cool and put it someplace it will not be disturbed.
• Now just wait. The sugar crystals will go over the next 3-7 days.

Why It Works:

When you mixed the water and sugar you made a super saturated solution. This means that the water could only hold the sugar if both were very hot. As the water cools the sugar "comes out" of the solution back into sugar crystals on your skewer. The skewer (and sometimes the glass itself) act as a "seed" that the sugar crystals start to grow on. With some luck and patience you will have a tasty scientific treat! Enjoy! 

Extras To Do In Your Class:

Because this experiment will take a few days, in their science journals, have students record their rock candies progress. You should encourage students to write a descriptive paragraph about what they see in the jar, and to draw a picture to accompany their description.