Dancing Fruit
Who thought fruit and fizz could be so entertaining? This simple experiment is more exciting than it looks!
Experiment
- Fill one glass with water and the other with lemonade.
- What do you think will happen when you drop a few small fruit pieces into the water? Do it. What happens?
- What do you think will happen when doing the same with the lemonade? Do that too. What happens? It may take a while to do anything.
Mix it up by trying other types of fruit or even jelly sweets (jelly worms look amazing!)
So what's happening?
In the water the fruit pieces just sink to the bottom. This is because the fruit is heavier or denser than the water.
In the lemonade, bubbles form on the fruit and make it bob to the top before sinking rapidly back down again. Some of it even seems to spin and dance! The bubbles are lighter or less dense than the water, meaning they head up towards the surface - carrying the fruit with them. When they reach the surface some of the bubbles pop and escape into the air and the fruit isn't being lifted by so many any more and sinks again.
This carries on for as long as the lemonade has enough fizz!
What if?
What would happen if you:
- Used milk in place of lemonade?
- Used marbles instead of fruit?
- Used dry rice instead of fruit?