Grow a Bear Osmosis

 

Osmosis is the movement of water from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration. Jelly bears are made from gelatine and don't contain any water so we are going to see what happens when you add the sweets to different liquids 

The first thing that we are going to do is set up our 6 glasses/ containers. You will want to label your containers so that they don't get muddled. You will want to add one of water, salt water, sugar water, bicarbonate of soda dissolved in water, milk and vinegar into each container.

You are then going to add a jelly bear sweet to each container and then leave them overnight

So when you go back and have a look at your sweets you will find that they will all have grown but some will have grown more than others. You should see that the bear that was in the normal water will have grown at a faster speed than the other bears. This is because there is a bigger difference in the concentration of water between the inside and the outside of the bear so the water will move into the sweet.

You could try this activity with some other liquids and see what happens. You could also leave your bears for longer and see if they grow any bigger or see what happens to them

The video tutorial for this activity is available on the Surrey Libraries Facebook Page or the Surrey Libraries YouTube Channel