Engineering the Perfect Gummy Candy
Students use a recipe to prepare a hydrogel gummy snack, which has a similar consistency to that found in a Haribo® gummy product. They must convert the juice and gelatin-based recipe from US customary units to metric units with dimensional analysis conversion. After unit conversion, teams are given different gelatin quantities and design their gummy snacks. Once the candies have solidified, student groups compare the gummy snacks are for viscosity and taste. After a taste test, teams reflect on their experiment and brainstorm ways to iterate a better gummy recipe.
In this activity, students prepare edible hydrogels in a variety of shapes using concentrations of gelatin in beet, apple and orange juice.Copyright Jodie Polan, Rice University RET
Food, industrial, and chemical engineers may work with food products to help enhance production techniques. Food engineers may help design new types of foods based on existing technologies to make the products we consume last longer. Industrial engineers may identify ways to preserve the shelf-life of packaged foods. Chemical engineers may work on ways to enhance the taste of certain types of foods, so a product has a uniform taste off the production line. Food manufacturing companies employ engineers for a variety of reasons. In this activity, students become food engineers to engineer the perfect gummy snack!
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Observe how chemical properties apply to changes in matter, particularly in food production.
- Apply math to unit conversions to build hydrogel structures.
- Understand what kind of parameters are important in preparing chemical solutions.
- Prepare a chemical solution.
- Communicate and present solutions based on evidence.