Have you seen the rainbow candy experiment? It's a very simple experiment that involves pouring water into a plate that has M&M's candies or Skittles arranged in a pattern. Very curious shapes of sharply divided regions form spontaneously. How does this happen?!
Tom Kuntzleman tests to see if Powerade can be used as a source of reducing sugars in the classic silver mirror demonstration, and reminisces about Christmas days past when doing so.
Ethylene, C2H4, a volatile plant hormone stimulates fruit ripening and is also released during ripening. This post explains the role of ethylene in ripening and presents how the chemical identity of the ethylene scavenger used to suppress premature ripening during storage was determined.
What is the pressure inside a bottle of soda pop? Read this short article to find the surprising answer to this question, and also to learn how to do an experiment to answer this question for yourself!
What's a better way to start the new school year than with some new experiments? Learn how to use a variety of color changing experiments to teach students about the Diet Coke and Mentos experiment, acids, bases, chemical and physical changes, and climate change.
The process of making beverages from fermented grain is a chemical synthesis slightly newer than human civilization itself. This article descibes the chemistry of the first step- malting the raw mature grain.
I observe a red to blue color change when I rinse my bowl after eating frozen blueberries. Sounds like an acid-base reaction, doesn’t it? Well, read on to learn about the blueberry surprise!
If rhubarb stem is placed in a solution of permanganate, the purple permanganate ion is reduced to the colorless Mn2+ ion. It is thought that the oxalic acid present in rhubarb causes this reduction. The investigations presented in this post provide evidence that this may not be the whole story...
The chemistry of the Sunflower dye found in McCormick’s Color from Nature food dyes is explored in this post. This is the last in a three-part series in which several experiments and demonstrations that can be done with Color from Nature food dyes are described.
The chemistry of the Sky Blue dye found in McCormick's Color From Nature food colors is explored. This is part one of a three-part series in which the chemistry of McCormick's Color From Nature food colors is presented.
