Sugar Crystals

About a month or so ago, Brayden and I decided to do a science experiment. We were going to make sugar crystals. It's pretty easy. I remember making salt crystals grow on coal when I was a kid. I'm not sure what we did for that, but I would like to find out and do that with Brayden some time too. We just did this to see if it would actually work--it does.

Directions:

1 cup boiling water

3-4 cups sugar

food color-what ever color you want the crystals to be

quart jar

pencil

string

washer or paper clip (we used a 1 inch washer)

1. Dissolve sugar in boiling water--this takes a while. Add sugar slowly, bits at a time, wait for it to dissolve, then add more. Again, this takes a while.

2. Add food color and pour into quart jar

3. Tie string around paper clip/washer

4. Put washer into jar with sugar--you do not want it to touch the sides or the bottom of the jar.

5. When you know what that lenghth is, tie it to the pencil and lay pencil across quart jar.

6. Let sit for 24 hours, undisturbed- you should see crystals appear (We did not see crystals this soon, it seemed we had to wait for at least a week, and even at that they were very small.)

We left our string in for month or even a little longer--it grew into quite a big crystal (about a 2 inch ball size)--Brayden is quite proud. DO NOT EAT CRYSTAL if on washer or paper clip-something about lead, I think. I've seen people do it on a dowel, instead of string and paper clip--that would be edible.