Growing sugar crystals

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imdoingbetterthanyou
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Feb 15, 2012 10:15 am
Occupation: well im frederic as you know LOL
Project Question: whats is scientific method
Project Due Date: none
Project Status: I am just starting

Growing sugar crystals

Post by imdoingbetterthanyou »

sunfish123 wrote:My son's experiment is studying the effect of evaporation on sugar crystal growth. The first attempt we clearly did not add enough sugar to the water, but the jar with the fan blowing on it clearly exhibited evaporation, as the water level was lower than the other jars. This time we saturated the water with sugar but now the jars have a crust forming on the top. Is that the crystals forming? Granted, the experiment has only been running for 30 hours, but there are no crystals growing on the string or rock candy tied to the end. There does appear to be some sugar sitting on the bottom of the jar. The crust on top of the water seems to be preventing any evaporation. Do we need to break up the crusty layer? It's on both the regular jar and the jar with the fan blowing on it. (His third jar is closed with the lid and I haven't opened it to see if a crusty layer has formed on that one or not.) Thanks for any suggestions.
whats is scientific method plz tell me i have noo cule :) thank you
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donnahardy2
Former Expert
Posts: 2671
Joined: Mon Nov 14, 2005 12:45 pm

Re: Growing sugar crystals

Post by donnahardy2 »

Hi,

Welcome to Science Buddies! This is a great project, and it sounds like you have crystals forming, however, not in the expected location.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p005.shtml

The crystals have started forming on the surface of the sugar solution, probably due to the fact that the surface of the sugar solution was disturbed by the fan. Or, dust particles may have settled on the surface and started the crystallization process. The crystals will not form on the string now, so you will have to start over again if you have time. We have recently revised the instructions for this project, so do read through the detailed instructions and try again.

The Science Buddies website has information on the Scientific Method:

Here’s the basic description for doing a a scientific experiment:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... thod.shtml

Here’s the step-by-step guide for doing a science project:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ndex.shtml

Please let us know if you have any other questions.


Donna Hardy
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