M&M MELTDOWN EXPERIMENT

My daughter as of recently has been insisting that M&Ms are not made out of chocolate. By my logic, since they’re covered in a hard colorful shell, she doesn’t immediately associate them with brown chocolate. Enter the M&M Meltdown experiment.

First, I explained the activity, discussed the safety concerns over touching things that are hot (IMPORTANT), and had her form a hypothesis (yes, I used that word). She hypothesized that the colors would melt and mix and that orange would be a newly created color. It’s important to note that all answers are acceptable during this phase because it’s nothing more than what she thinks will happen.

I then created a design using the M&Ms, poured hot water over them (you may need a 2nd adult in the room if you believe your child will touch the hot water), and we observed and discussed what was happening. It was hard to be patient, so we would go back and forth between this activity and others, noting new developments as time passed. In the end, the color orange had in fact appeared and the shells completely melted off of several M&Ms revealing brown chocolate. 🙌🏻 Mission accomplished through science.