DENSITY

PHYSICAL SCIENCE
Materials:
Small, shallow glass dishes or
petri dishes
Smarties of assorted colours,
water, food colouring

Procedure:
1.Start by filling two petri dishes
with a small amount of room
temperature tap water. (Enough
to cover the Smarties.)
2.Using one dish and food
colouring, place 1-2 drops of a
single colour in the dish of water
and observe what happens.
Repeat this using fresh water and 4 different colours of food colouring. Place one drop
in each of the 4 quadrants of the dish and observe what happens. The dye should mix
colours in the water.
3. Using the second petri dish with water and 4 different coloured Smarties (red, blue,
green, and orange work well because of their brightness/visibility), place one Smartie in
each quadrant of the dish. Do not touch and observe what is happening to the
colouring. The colouring of the Smarties should fade into the water into 4 very distinct
quadrants, the colours will not mix.
Questions:
1. What do you think will happen to the colours when the Smarties are placed in the 4
quadrants in the water?
2. Why does the food colouring blend together and the Smartie colouring stays separate?
3. What will happen if you move the dish? Will the Smartie colours mix together?
4. What effect does sugar have on water?
The Science: The Smarties have a sugar coating which is mostly all white, only the very outer layer is coloured.

The sugar coating begins dissolving in the water as the Smarties sink. The sugar solution is more dense than the
water, making it sink to the bottom of the dish. After the solution sinks in the water, it spreads out. What you see
is a density gradient forming between the sugar solution in the centre of the dish and the pure water around the
perimeter. The density gradient forms a current, similar to an ocean current, which flows away from the sugar
concentration in the centre towards the area of low sugar concentration at the rim of the dish. Once the outer
layer of coloured sugar on the Smarties has dissolved, the density gradient continues to push sugary water to the
perimeter of the dish. Without food colouring to make this stage of the proceeding visible, it looks like its
magically attracted to the rim, but its actually the remaining, uncoloured sugar dissolving into the water which is
causing this to occur. The colour spreads away from each chocolate in a semi-circular direction, but where the
colours meet, it looks like they stop in their tracks. This has to do with the currents. Initially, the currents spread
in every direction, but at the junction where any two colours meet, the concentration of sugar (aka the density of
the solution) is equal on both sides. With no difference in the density of the solution on either side, the density
driven colour current stops. But it doesnt really stop, more sugar keeps dissolving away from each chocolate and
piling up at these junctions but you dont notice because sugar dissolves clear. If you measured the sugar
concentration on either side of a junction, you would see it rising until all the sugar has dissolved. The food
colouring test is done as proof that its not the dye in the Smarties which is causing this reaction.