A couple of weeks ago, the boys and I experimented with making 3 different types of crystals. With Saint Patrick’s day just around the corner, I wanted to do something related to the coming holiday. Our crystal experiment made me wonder if we could make our own golden crystals, and fill up our own pot of gold. A quick trip to cake-making aisle at Hobby Lobby helped me find the best way! Our crystal science experiment, this time, would only involve sugar crystals.
A Golden Crystal Science Experiment
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Supplies
- plastic knife (or stick, small dowel)
- baking string
- 1/2 cup of gold sugar
- 1 cup of sugar
- glass bowl
- black paint
- paint brush
How to Make your Own Gold!
Step 1: Paint the glass bowl black, because all pots full of gold are black!
Step 2: Cut a 3 inch piece of baking string, and tie one end to the plastic knife.
Step 3: Boil 1/2 cup of water.
Step 4: Slowly pour in a cup of sugar. Stir until all the sugar is dissolved in the water.
Step 5: Slowly pour half a cup of gold sugar into the water. Stir until the gold sugar is completely dissolved, and starts making small crystals.
Step 6: Place the painted glass bowl into your sink, and slowly pour the sugar water solution into the bowl.
Step 7: Drop the end of the string into the sugar water solution by suspending the plastic knife across the pot’s opening.
Step 8: Place the pot in a sunny spot, and leave it alone for a week.
Step 9: After a week, pull the sting out of the pot, and mine for your sugar gold!
After cracking the thin top layer, and digging for awhile, we also tried sifting the gold out of the pot using a small strainer, and a few loose parts fell out.
Next we tried to loosen up some pieces by placing the pot in a bowl of warm water. The thought was that some of the sugar crystals would melt, and loosen up larger chunks. And it worked! We mined as many pieces out as we could, then placed them into a smaller, plastic black pot I found at Dollar Tree.
The boys really loved our golden crystal science experiment! But remembering the different crystalline shapes from our previous crystal science experiment, I wondered if there was a way to make gold crystals quicker, and in the shape of borax crystals. Come back soon to see if we found a way!
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