Pepper Chase

This is a fun little experiment involving pepper, sugar, water and soap. It quick and easy to put together and is fascinating for all ages!

What you need:

• Pie plate or large bowl
• Water
• Bar of soap
• Pepper*
• Sugar*

*See the "What Not To Do" secion


Directions:

Fill a pie plate with water.

Shake pepper on the water.

Dip a piece of wet soap in it. Make sure everyone is watching before you dip the soap in. It happens fast...

The pepper will run away from the soap.

Next, shake some sugar in to the clear area of the water and the pepper will come back. In my opinion, this is as dramatic of a reaction when it happens.


Other Variations:

• Try it in individual size bowls. The affect is not as dramatic, but my kids had fun playing with their own water.
• Try different types of soap. Liquid soap causes quite a quick/dramatic reaction, but it is difficult to redo the experiment without changing the water first.

What Not To Do:

• I tried cutting a couple of pieces of soap from a large bar. Since it was small, it was harder for the kids to hold on to when wet and the reaction did not occur as quickly or noticeably.
• Put the sugar and pepper in smaller and separate bowls if they do not already have their own shaker. My sugar is in a large container and while I was helping my son, my daughter put her soapy hands in it and now we have soapy sugar. I learned my lesson!

Just seeing the pepper scoot away so quickly was fun for my kiddos. I hope you, too, will have some fun with this!