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Dancing Hearts Collect • Conversation Hearts • Large, clear jar • Colorless soda (club soda or sprite) Set up the experiment 1. Pour the soda into the jar and observe what happens to the bubbles inside of the soda. What do you think will happen when you add the candy hearts? 2. Add a few candy hearts and watch what happens! 3. Try out other materials to see if anything will dance. Will uncooked pasta work? A paper- clip? What about a raisin or a grape? How does it work? The floating bubbles in soda are made of carbon dioxide gas. Conversation hearts are denser than soda and would normally sink to the bottom, but as they start to sink, lots of tiny bubbles stick to the sides of the heart. These gas bubbles are less dense than the soda and act like a life preserver for the candy heart. Once the candy heart reaches the top with its bubble life preserver, the gas bubbles pop and cause the candy to sink again. Candy hearts work well for this experiment because they have a rough surface that lets lots of gas bubbles attach to it to make it buoyant, and are just heavy enough to sink in the soda. 601 Light Street Baltimore, MD 21230 • www.marylandsciencecenter.org
