Sweet candy flag

Safe­ty pre­cau­tions

Warn­ing! Only un­der adult su­per­vi­sion.

Equip­ment

• plate;
• sweet dragée;
• wa­ter.

Step-by-step in­struc­tions

Ar­range dragée can­dies on a plate in ac­cor­dance with the col­ors of the flag you want to make. Add enough wa­ter to im­merse the can­dies ap­prox­i­mate­ly half­way. Af­ter a few min­utes, the col­ors of the sweets blur, and the flag you have cho­sen ap­pears!

Process de­scrip­tion

Dragée can­dies are coat­ed with col­or­ings and sug­ar glaze. The sug­ar and col­or­ings dis­solve in wa­ter, yield­ing a col­ored so­lu­tion that is denser than wa­ter. This cre­ates col­ored streams un­der the wa­ter’s sur­face, which fill the voids be­tween the can­dies. When two col­ored streams col­lide, they do not form new streams; they mix slow­ly and ex­clu­sive­ly via dif­fu­sion.

Let your chil­dren see the world through the eyes of a sci­en­tist with a MEL Sci­ence sub­scrip­tion!