You will need

• 3 clear glasses or jars
• 1 spoon
• 2 cups of water
• ½ cup of sugar
• 1 package of gummy bears
• 1 cup of juice
• Post-it notes or pieces of paper and a pen for labelling

What to do

1. Set three glasses or jars on the counter.
2. Label one glass “water”, one “sugar water” and one “juice”
3. Pour one cup of water into the glasses labelled “water” and “sugar water”.
4. Pour one cup of juice into the last empty glass labelled “juice”.
5. Add ½ cup of sugar to glass labelled “sugar water” and stir for 5 minutes.
6. Put one gummy bear into each glass. Keep one gummy bear for comparison.
7. Put the glasses in the fridge and leave the gummy bears to soak overnight.
8. The next day use a spoon to take each gummy bear out of its glass.
9. Compare the gummy bears to the one you left outside. What happened to them? You can even use a ruler to measure the gummy bears.
10. All gummy bears are safe to eat. Compare how they feel when you eat them.

Background

Each liquid contained more water and less sugar than the gummy bears. The water went into the gummy bears to balance out the amount of water between the bears and the solution. This movement of water from a place with lots of water to a place with less water is called osmosis. For example, plant roots use osmosis to take up water from the soil.

The gummy bears swelled up because water moved into them through osmosis. The larger the bear, the more water moved into it. How was osmosis different for the three liquids used?

You can watch a short video of this experiment here: