{"id":1521,"date":"2016-08-01T08:11:21","date_gmt":"2016-08-01T02:26:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dorjegurung.com\/sciblog\/?p=1521"},"modified":"2026-03-12T18:30:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T18:30:13","slug":"sugar-daddy-with-flare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/sciblog\/sugar-daddy-with-flare\/","title":{"rendered":"Sugar Daddy&#8230;with Flare"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Watch the video first to find out a bit about this challenge &#8212; the <a href=\"http:\/\/dorjegurung.com\/sciblog\/teach-to-learn-learn-to-teach\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">6th in the eight-challenge series<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"IB1 Sugar Daddy with Flare\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Pn3KO5RWwE8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Oxidation of sugar is the source of energy for most animals. Those that live around hydrothermal vents deep in the oceans are one of the exceptions!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The challenge for the Brawns and Beauties this time was to create three mixtures of the ingredients each&nbsp;not to&nbsp;exceed 8 grams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 15pt\">The assessment criterium &#8212; which they came up with &#8212; was the following:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 15pt\">(Sugar mass \u2013 mass of final product) \u00d7 duration of the flame \u00d7 height of the flame.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(The only condition I had laid down when I asked them to decide on it, had been that it couldn&#8217;t be the same as for <a href=\"http:\/\/dorjegurung.com\/sciblog\/the-gunpowder-challenge-the-explosive-meet\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the Gunpowder Challenge: The Explosive Meet<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, on the one hand, the higher the proportion of the initiator (potassium chlorate)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>the smaller mass of sugar<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>the higher rate of reaction and possibly more efficient the reaction (to a point), so shorter the duration of the flame<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>the\u00a0smaller the mass of final product and<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>the\u00a0taller flame<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>But on the other hand, smaller the proportion of the initiator<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>the bigger the mass of the sugar,<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>the lower rate of the reaction and possibly lower the efficiency of the reaction, so longer the duration of the flame<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>the bigger the mass of the final product and<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>the smaller the size of the flame<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 15pt\">The challenge therefore was to decide on the optimum&nbsp;ratio of the two to get the highest product of the three figures!<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The rate of reaction of course would also depend on the form of the two reactants. Obviously, finely powdered initiator AND sugar would be more efficient than any other combination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course I had every single &#8220;firing&#8221; of the mixture filmed. But I can&#8217;t find them. \ud83d\ude41 I am sure I filmed them because we have <a href=\"http:\/\/dorjegurung.com\/sciblog\/teach-to-learn-learn-to-teach\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the results of the tests<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, I did a similar challenge\/investigation with the 10th graders! Here&#8217;s their result just to give you some idea for how it might turn out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"M5A Spring 10 Sugar Daddy...with flare\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9DYjXFyN4nM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>(If you are interested in another idea for how this could be investigated\/used in the classroom, <a href=\"http:\/\/dorjegurung.com\/sciblog\/dp-chemistry\/dp2\/dp2-sugar-daddy-with-flare\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">click here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this challenge, both the Brawns and the Beauties <a href=\"http:\/\/dorjegurung.com\/sciblog\/teach-to-learn-learn-to-teach\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">scored points but equal points<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Who says sugar is bad for children?! It&#8217;s especially not bad in a chemistry classroom where it can be used to create flares and to bring chemistry alive! This is the 6th Beauties vs. Brawns challenge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Sugar Daddy...with Flare","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,26,8],"tags":[25,24,21,5,18,22,51,45],"class_list":["post-1521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chemistry","category-enrichment-activities","category-ib-diploma","tag-azerbaijan","tag-baku","tag-chemistry-teaching","tag-ib-chemistry","tag-ib-diploma-chemistry","tag-ideas-for-chemistry-lessons","tag-open-ended-problem","tag-oxidation-of-sugar"],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/sciblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/sugar-daddy...with-flare-feat-image.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Y7Kk-ox","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/sciblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/sciblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/sciblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/sciblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/sciblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1521"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/sciblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4114,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/sciblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1521\/revisions\/4114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/sciblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/sciblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/sciblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/sciblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}