Candy Canes

We finally did our candy cane experiment. I've had the stuff sitting on the lab table for over a week!

We had three beakers hold apple juice, two with vegetable oil (didn't have enough oil to make three), three with vinegar, and three with water. One candy cane was set to the side as a control. There were enough candy canes that everyone could unwrap one to put it in the beaker. That also let us put them in at the same time. One girl went through three candy canes because every time she tried to take the wrapper off, the candy cane shattered.

The results were mostly as suspected. Oil did nothing to the candy canes. Apple juice was third fastest. Water and vinegar were tied as the fastest. We could actually see the sugar dissolving into the solution! It's hard to tell which of those two worked faster. After a half an hour, the candy canes in both liquids had dissolved down to a thin pole and the thin bottom half broke off in the beaker.  By the end of the day, part of the candy cane still covered by the wrapper had been dissolved too. We're leaving one in a beaker overnight to see what happens, but the rest went into the garbage.