Science experiment

We're doing astronomy for science right now.

I wasn't anxious to head outside when it was 20-something degrees out but today we hit the 60's. Time for our sun experiment.

We were supposed to take chilled chocolate bars and use a magnifying glass to concentrate the sun's beams on the chocolate. Pretty predictable, sure, but who doesn't want to do an experiment that involves candy bars?



I neglected to ask what the girls thought would happen. My own hypothesis was that we'd get a melty spot that would be messy as the girls ate it.

I was a little surprised at what actually happened.

It burned. Smoke and everything. No nice, melted chocolate here-it was black and charred.

The girls talked about making s'mores this way. I told them I wouldn't have the patience.

Maybe I should have let them use the chocolate for microwave s'mores. The burned chocolate would have given it that authentic campfire flavor, I bet.

We were all suitably impressed by the power of the sun and I'm guessing that this will remain one of their favorite science experiments of all time.