Thursday, April 21, 2011

Gum Lab

Students each had a piece of gum and observed the gum by weighing it, drawing it, and smelling it. All the gum was Dubble Bubble, but the Cry Babies were the most popular.

Next the students chewed the gum for ten minutes. While they were waiting we watched How Its Made on bubblegum (the video is linked on the side if you want to check it out). We also had a little fun blowing bubbles.

After ten minutes, students did more observations and re-weighed the gum. The gum weighed less... why? Because the sugar dissolved and was lost. Using this weight difference, students determined the percent composition of sugar in the gum they chewed. They also can convert the grams to moles and determine how many moles of sugar were in the gum.

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