Science Experiment

OUR GUMMY WORM SCIENCE EXPERIMENT

We are studying topic 6 which is about matter and energy. What we wanted to show them was how we can guess and predict changes.

To begin the process, we filled three plastic cups about half way with water. We also filled one with vinegar in the same way as we did with the water. We dropped a gummy worm in each of the cups.

First cup: water+worm

Second cup: vinegar+worm

Third cup: water+salt+worm

Fourth cup: water+salt

I asked the children to tell me what they thought might happen to the worms if we let them sit in the water and the other substances for a few days. As the children told me their observations and predictions, we jotted our thoughts down on a poster and on the digital board.

After making our observations and predictions, the children set their gummy worms aside for a few days.

We checked in on the gummy worms all throughout the week. I was curious to know what would happen to them too. I didn’t know if they would fall apart, dissolve, or get bigger since I had used a different candy than what the book suggests. During the whole week, when the children arrived to school in the morning, they immediately went to see what had happened to our gummy worms and we had our follow-up discussion.

They smelled the different cups and we took some notes about the differences we found.

We saw that our gummy worms had bubbles all over them. (The bubbles go way once you actually touch the gummy worm and put them back in the water). We also discovered that our red gummy worms had slightly changed the water colour but the other colours of gummy worms didn’t noticeably change the water’s colour at all.

We also observed that our gummy worms were floating in the water. We also discovered that our gummy worms had definitely gotten larger. They had grown at least twice the size of the original gummy worm. We wrapped up our gummy worm science by using our hands to feel them. They were squishy, cold and they even bounced a bit when we dropped them on the table. And finally, we realized that the gummy worm inside the vinegar dissolved.

For the fourth cup we have to wait till the water evaporates to observe what happens but it will take longer….

We hope you enjoy our gummy worm science as much as we did and will be able to give it a try too!! Perhaps you would rather use gummy bears.