Reversible and Irreversible Candy

Last week before the Winter Holiday, trying to keep the kids focused.  We’re also supposed to be working on our heat unit, specifically introducing reversible and irreversible changes.  So, I decided to make candy!

 

We made two kinds of candy – sugar lollipops and chocolate lollipops.

 

The chocolate lollipops are quite simple – you break apart some dark chocolate, melt it in a pan and put it into molds.  If the chocolate gets too hard while you are filling the molds – apply more heat - hence the reversible part of chocolate lollipops.

The sugar lollipops are a little more difficult, but not much.  I found my recipe on a blog called Funkytime, and decided to use the corn syrup free recipe, which calls for sugar, water, cream of tartar, food coloring and flavor oils – we used strawberry.  After mixing the sugar, water and cream of tartar, you heat until 290 degrees Fahrenheit.  Then, add food coloring and flavor and POUR onto molds. 

 

 

I didn’t read that last direction well and we scooped our candy into the molds – only to have the candy get too hard to scoop, thereby wasting half of our candy.  However, we tried to heat what was left and found that it only got harder, proving the irreversibility of sugar lollipops. 

 

After making and setting our lollipops, we of course had to eat them, and then we filled in a Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting the two processes.

 

How are you fitting learning into the last days before Winter Break?