STEAM Lab for Kids: Crushed Candy Stained Glass

Create gorgeous, edible art by melting hard candy with this fun activity for STEAM Lab for Kids.

Want to do an activity over Skype with author Liz Lee Heinecke? Enter to win our STEAM Lab for Kids pre-order giveaway here!

SAFETY  TIPS AND HINTS

? Adult supervision is required for this experiment. Melted candy is very hot and sticky and can cause burns.
? Wear protective eyeware when hammering the candy.
? Cookie cutters with simple shapes that sit flat on a baking sheet work best for this project.

MATERIALS

? Oven
? Clear, colorful, hard candy
? Small zippered plastic bags (1 bag for each color of candy)
? 1 large zippered plastic bag
? Protective glasses
? Hammer
? Baking sheet
? Nonstick cooking spray
? 5 to 10 cookie cutters

PROTOCOL

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C, or gas mark 4).

2. Unwrap the hard candy and sort it by color (fig. 1).
3. Put each color of candy in its own small zippered plastic bag and seal the bags. Put all the small bags into one larger zippered bag. Seal the larger bag.

4. Put on your protective glasses and crush the candy with a hammer (fig. 2).
5. Store the crushed candy in the freezer until you’re ready to use it.
6. Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray.
7. Arrange the cookie cutters on the prepared baking sheet and spray them lightly with cooking spray.

8. Fill the cookie cutters with different colors of crushed candy until about 1/2 inch (1.5 cm) thick (fig. 3).

9. Put the baking sheet in the oven for 5 minutes or until the candy melts and looks like stained glass (fig. 4).
10. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and let the candy cool completely.

11. Carefully remove the candy stained glass from the cookie cutters (fig. 5).

12. Eat your creation (fig. 6).

CREATIVE ENRICHMENT

? Try melting different kinds of candy to see what happens

THE STEAM BEHIND THE FUN:

Most clear hard candy has what food scientists call a glass structure. Rather than individual sugar crystals like you see in table sugar and rock candy, it has a disorganized structure. When hard candy is made, corn syrup (glucose and fructose) is added to melted table sugar (sucrose) to keep sugar molecules from crystalizing. The long sugar chains in the corn syrup interfere with crystal formation, so hard candy remains clear and glasslike when it cools.

Stained glass art has been around since the Middle Ages. Unlike hard candy, real glass is made from silicon dioxide—the main component of sand.

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STEAM Lab for Kids is an art-forward doorway to science, math, technology and engineering.

While many aspiring artists don’t necessarily identify with STEM subjects, and many young inventors don’t see the need for art, one is essential to the other. Revealing this connection and encouraging kids to explore it fills hungry minds with tools essential to problem solving and creative thinking.

Each of the projects in this book is designed to demonstrate that the deeper you look into art, the more engineering and math you’ll find. There’s a science to great art. From graphite circuit comic books to edible stained glass, young engineers and artists alike will find inspiration.