Keeping Your Candy Cool with the Power of Evaporation

For my class, it was a requirement that we complete a science fair project.  For my project, I did keeping your candy cool with the power of evaporation.  This experiment helps explain the process of evaporation in a fun way.  I chose this experiment to gain more knowledge on how evaporation works.  Before I started doing this experiment I knew what evaporation was but I did not know that it could keep the candy from melting, so it was really neat to see how that works.  In one of the articles that I read it talked about how when evaporation is used to cool an object, it is called evaporation cooling and it is one of the greatest phenomena.  One thing that I found interesting from reading the articles is that when we sweat that it is our body trying to cool down.  Our bodies are using evaporation cooling to keep us cool so that we do not overheat and pass out on a hot day.  This was something that I did not know before doing this experiment and I thought that it was really interesting to learn.


I really enjoyed conducting this experiment.  I don't ever remember doing a science fair experiment when I was in elementary school so this was fun.  Conducting the experiment and making the virtual poster helped me to better understand the different parts of the scientific method and what is suppose to go in each part.  It was also cool to see the results of the experiment.  Before conducting this experiment I was a little skeptical about whether it would actually work or not.  It was cool to see that both of the candies did not melt and that the experiment did work.  To share our science fair projects with each other we used VoiceThread which is an online voice recording website.  I really liked using this website, and being able to explain each of the different parts of my project.  I think that VoiceThread would be a really good resource to use in the classroom if there was not enough time to do an actual science fair.  My colleagues were able to leave comments on my poster and ask questions about things that they did not understand or if I were to do it again would I change something.  One of my colleagues said that she really enjoyed my experiment and that it helped her to gain a better understanding of how evaporation works.  I don't think a lot of people know how evaporation works so this is a really good experiment to use, especially in the classroom.  Another question that I was asked by my one of my colleagues was if I were to do the experiment again would I use another type of candy to compare it too.  After conducting the experiment I think I should have had another candy to see if different types of candies are affected differently by the evaporation process. 

Not only did I find my experiment to very intriguing but I also found my colleagues' experiments to be very interesting as well.  One of my colleagues did an experiment on dissolving salt and if it dissolves faster in hot water, room temperature, or cold water.  I never knew that salt could dissolve in cold water so it was interesting to see that it actually could.  My other colleague did an experiment on how apples turn brown in different places and where the best place to keep them would be.  Before looking at her experiment I thought that the best place to keep apples was on the counter, but after looking at her experiment I learned that the refrigerator is the best place to keep them.  This is because the refrigerator is the coolest environment.