Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi! My 4th grader is trying to grow sugar crystals. We made the solution today with 2 cups water and 4 cups sugar but after heating it and adding 1tablespoon at a time until it will no longer dissolve the solution came out with a yellow tint. After reading some other forums on here I'm starting to think we added too much sugar (14 tablespoons). Could this be why it looks yellow? Or did we heat it for too long? I'm wondering if we should start over? Thank You!
-April

Hi there,

I'd guess that the yellowing is from too much heat rather than adding too much sugar. It is possible that you slightly burnt the sugar which would give a yellow and then brown color. Due to the time it takes to wait and see if the crystals grow, I would repeat it again, just in case!

Hope that helps.

Erin

Thank you, Erin. We have time before it’s due so we decided to just wait and see if the crystals grew. To our surprise, they started growing the next day! Today was day seven so we decided to pull the crystals out and measure them. A layer of crystals formed at the bottom of both jars and the crystals from the strings connected with the bottom layer so now they are stuck. We poured out the solution so now they are still in the jars drying out. Hopefully we can get them out tomorrow. One string broke so the crystals from that one crumbled.