Valentine's Day Candy Heart Science

Let's be honest, candy hearts aren't the greatest tasting holiday candies, they are right up there with Peeps for me. However, we did find a fun way to incorporate them into a science lesson! You will find the free download for this activity at the end of this post!

For this experiment, you will need 3 clear jars

water

vinegar

honey

a freezer

a microwave

You can change any of these things up, as the purpose of this experiment is to learn about hypothesis and recording observations.

First, pour each of the liquid substances in the clear glasses or jars.

Next, talk about and discuss each scenario on the worksheet and have them fill out their guess as to what may happen if you drop candy hearts in each cup, as well as the microwave and freezer! Encourage them to think about and recall what has happened to other items in these situations in the past such as putting girl scout cookies (thin mints of course) into the freezer, cereal in milk, or when they put popcorn into the microwave. Do they think the same thing will happen to the candy hearts or something different?

After their hypothesis' are recorded, they can get to experimenting, observing, and testing their hypothesis.

After about an hour (wait to do the microwave towards the end, we put ours in for just a minute) Have them record what they see! Let them feel, smell, and taste (yuck) if they would like. Did they notice how the microwave hearts turned into a marshmallow like texture? Did they notice the bubbles and writing disappearing on the vinegar hearts? Encourage them to think about why these things happened.