My boys loved our science fair project last year. It was simple to complete, but especially interesting for parents and students. My boys were supposed to stay at their table and explain things, and they had so many kids and parents stop to read their research, which made all the effort worth it. It also shifted some of our drinking habits and made us more aware of the sugar we consume. Placing the sugar cubes next to each item was especially effective, then they divided the sugar by ounces to find out which drinks were the most sugary per ounce, using a little math too!
Quick steps to complete this science project:
1. Gather a bunch of drinks that kids love...drink them and save the packaging. Buy sugar cubes.
2. Talk about how much added sugar kids are supposed to have per day (3 teaspoons) and be prepared to be shocked...less than ONE Capri Sun!
3. Talk about the difference between naturally occurring sugar and added sugar. My kids wanted to use both, but we were careful to differentiate them in our findings as "added sugar" is the real villain.
4. Ask the kids to form their hypothesis.
5. 4 grams of sugar equals one teaspoon...so figure out how many teaspoons of sugar are in each drink, then glue that amount of sugar cubes next to the drink (a hot glue gun seemed to work best).
6. Since most drinks will be different sizes, we decided to break down how many grams per ounce to come up with the worst drinks for us.
7. Decide what drinking habits need to be changed.
8. This can also be interesting done with cereal, with one serving placed in a Ziploc bag and stapled to the poster board, then the sugar cubes next to it. My good friend, Ann Luke, did this project and you can see it HERE.
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