Crystals

J likes science experiments, and last Christmas he received the book 365 Simple Science Experiments with Everyday Materials. He has done a few of the experiments in the book so far (with Josh's help).

One of the experiments was to make saltwater and put it in a jar and make sugar water and put it in a jar and attach a piece of string or yarn with some kind of weight at the bottom to a crosspiece that rested over each jar's opening so that the string dangled into the water. Then you waited a few days to see what happened.

Over time, salt or sugar crystals formed on the string. The longer you left the string in the water undisturbed, the more crystals formed. J left them alone for a number of days, maybe even 2 weeks. It was quite a while.

The salt crystals that formed were finer, clearer, and more rectangular than the sugar ones. The sugar crystals were bigger and more square and made a much larger "chunk" in the same amount of time.

Here are the sugar crystals once taken out of the water. That chunk of crystals is about 3 1/2" long and 1" wide (if you hold it upright).

(Day 211 of 365)