Keep Your Candy Cool With the Power of Evaporation!

This lesson plan is designed to investigate the effect of water evaporation on temperature using common household items. It includes a short video clip on how to read thermometers. Consider using other types of candy that melts or chocolate-covered peanuts if chocolate-covered peppermints are not readily available. This can be adapted to have several teams of students to wrap and place candy next to the same lamp, providing the opportunity for different sets of data and individual team results.

Standards & Objectives

Learning objectives: 

Objective:

  • In this science fair project, you will discover how to use the evaporation of water to keep chocolate-covered candy from melting.
Essential and guiding questions: 
  • How does sweat cool your body down?
  • What are some ways people use evaporation to keep cool?
  • How do engineers use evaporation to keep objects cool?

Lesson Variations

Blooms taxonomy level: 
Applying

Helpful Hints

Materials:

  • Paper towel (6 sheets)
  • Scissors
  • Small bowl of room-temperature water
  • Chocolate candies in wrappers or small chocolate candy bars in wrappers (6) Note: Teardrop-shaped chocolates are not recommended.
  • Tape
  • Ruler
  • Drinking glass
  • Hair dryer
  • Timer
  • Lab notebook

References

Contributors: