My daughter loves experimenting with Skittles but this time it was my son’s turn to set up a little science experiment with the classic Skittles experiment, and adapting it for Earth Day. We thought it would work well for Earth Day so designed this Earth Day STEM Skittles experiment for kids, perfect for a little STEM exploration at home.
Earth Day STEM skittles experiment for kids
With Earth Day coming up later this month we thought it would be fun to make an earth out of Skittles to demonstrate our support for environmental protection. You don’t need much equipment. Just a big bag of Skittles, a white plate, and a jug of cold water. Unfortunately Skittles don’t make a blue one so we raided some Smarties for this experiment.
My son took out the blue and green sweets and made them into the shape of the earth on a white plate. This took a while as he wanted to make a recognisable world map!
Eventually we settled on a simple sphere made of the green and blue sweets.
Then we poured a little water onto the plate, slowly enough that the sweets didn’t move out of place, but enough to cover them.
Quite quickly you can watch the colours leech from them. The food colouring in the sweets is very strong and creates a pretty pattern.
So why does this happen? Well the Skittles and Smarties are covered in sugar and food colouring which dissolve as the water touches them. The coloured water then slowly moves around the plate.
The above process took about 2 minutes but we left the experiment out a little longer. Eventually all the colour came away from the sweets but the coloured water didn’t really change.
You may be interested in our other Earth Day craft and activities:
Simple Earth pom pom for Earth Day
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