Candy erosion

[Octotrouble]

I’m helping my son with a science fair experiment about erosion, adapted from here:

https://www.education.com/science-fair/article/erosion/

I’m looking for advice on how to measure/display the results. So far we have tested two types of candy, and both broke down/eroded in moving water vs still water. One was a hard candy (pez) that broke into small pieces, the other an m&m that shrunk in size but was intact. It’s obvious that moving water broke down or changed both types of candy. He has related it to waves in the ocean, where we have seen large rocks that have not experienced much weathering yet, and smaller smooth ones that have been weathered by waves.

I thought of displaying the data as yes/no (did the candy break down or reduce in size). But do you have any fun suggestions for other ways to show the results? Or other measurements we could take? Thank you

[chloemkohl]

This sounds like a super cool experiment!

I like your suggestion on displaying the data - maybe you could make a data table that includes whether or not the candy broke down while also including a section for observations. It could also be helpful to include before and after photos for direct comparisons, but there is no "correct" way to express data, especially if it's qualitative rather than quantitive.

Hopefully this is helpful, but let us know if you have any other questions!
- Chloe