A Piece of the Apple: Peeps Extravaganza! Part 1

April 24, 2014

Hi Friends,

I’m popping in to talk Peeps! Last week, we jumped on the Peeps experiment bandwagon to see what would happen when we dunked our fluffy friends into five different liquids.

We started off by watching a Brain Pop Jr. clip to review the scientific method. We are very fortunate to have a hands-on science lab at my site. The kids visit the lab every other week to participate in experiments run by a credentialed elementary science teacher. She chooses experiments that support the units we cover in class. She teaches a lesson for K-5 classes every day with only a five minute break/prep in between. To clarify, she teaches kindergarten and then they leave. Then, she has five minutes to set up for first grade, and then we come. After we leave, second grade comes. Did I mention how lucky we are?

The kids are very familiar with lab procedures so we started by posing our question, “What liquid will make the Peeps dissolve the quickest?” This question kinda bugged me because I am not sure if it’s grammatically correct…Maybe it should say, “….dissolve the most quickly?” I.D.K. All I know is that it’s been bugging me!

Students predicted if water, vinegar, soda, juice, or laundry soap would be the most efficient liquid to dissolve the Peeps. I surveyed the class and we tallied our answers on a white board. Next, I passed out a labeled bowl of each liquid to my table groups. Since I have five groups of six kids at each table, the student who did not have a bowl was the supply monitor. He or she was in charge of passing out the Peeps. After each child had a Peep in hand, we gently placed each one into the liquids. We made a quick observation of the color of the water upon starting the experiment and we noted that all Peeps started out purple.

Fast forward 24 hours. Within those 24 hours, we learned a few things. Not only did some of the liquids dissolve the Peeps, they also dissolved the bowls I used. I would have preferred to have used the hard, clear, plastic cups, but alas, the random bowls I had on hand were super appealing because they were free!! After placing the leaky bowls onto plates, we noticed that two of the Peeps (at the same table, mind you) had completing disintegrated. What in the world? We did some deductive reasoning and quickly concluded that there had been some Peeps tampering. Two sweet students “Pillsbury Dough Boy-ed” the Peeps’ bellies into ity bity bits of floating mallows.

After the mangled mallows were discarded, we got back to business. I had a representative from each table group bring the bowls up to the document camera. We displayed each bowl-o-Peep and I gave the kids a few minutes to discuss their observations. I recorded a “share” from each table group to be used later, during our lab write-up. Lastly, I passed out the Peeps recording sheet. Each student drew a picture of the Peeps after 24 hours of being submerged in the liquids. They also recorded whether or not their prediction was correct. Luckily for me, most of us were wrong. In our experiment, the laundry soap, not the soda, caused the Peeps to dissolve the quickest. My heart is full of relief and love as I can now go about drinking my Diet Coke in peace, knowing that my stomach lining is safe.