Sugar!

We have been listening to The Swiss Family Robinson as an audiobook. 

Waratah wanted to know: "What is sugar cane?"

This led us to research how sugar is grown, refined and marketed, and the history of sugar over the years.

We then decided to perform some experiments of our own.

Here, Waratah is observing and comparing six different types of sugar. We had white sugar, brown sugar, castor sugar, fructose sugar, icing sugar and raw sugar. He investigated the differences in their colour, texture and taste.

Next, we set up two experiments. 

The first was to see whether raw, white and icing sugar react differently when exposed to air over time.

The second was to create a super saturated sugar solution for each of those three types of sugar. We dissolved sugar in cold water, in room temperature water, in hot water, and in boiling water on the stove,

comparing how much sugar we could add before reaching saturation point, and how long it took for that sugar to dissolve. We discussed our results and drew hypothesis from them.

We put the super saturated sugar solution (produced on the stove) into glasses with a toothpick anchored in some cardboard. Our aim was to observe the formation of sugar crystals over time.

This is the white sugar glass. It showed the most immediate effect, as we could see nucleation points on the toothpick right from the start. This will be an ongoing experiment as it will take some time for the crystals to grow.