My boys loved our science fair project last year. It was simple to complete, but especially interesting for parents and students. My boys were supposed to stay at their table and explain things, and they had so many kids and parents stop to read their research, which made all the effort worth it. It also shifted some of our drinking habits and made us more aware of the sugar we consume. Placing the sugar cubes next to each item was especially effective, then they divided the sugar by ounces to find out which drinks were the most sugary per ounce, using a little math too!

Quick steps to complete this science project:

1. Gather a bunch of drinks that kids love…drink them and save the packaging. Buy sugar cubes.
2. Talk about how much added sugar kids are supposed to have per day (3 teaspoons) and be prepared to be shocked…less than ONE Capri Sun!
3. Talk about the difference between naturally occurring sugar and added sugar. My kids wanted to use both, but we were careful to differentiate them in our findings as “added sugar” is the real villain.
4. Ask the kids to form their hypothesis.
5. 4 grams of sugar equals one teaspoon…so figure out how many teaspoons of sugar are in each drink, then glue that amount of sugar cubes next to the drink (a hot glue gun seemed to work best).
6. Since most drinks will be different sizes, we decided to break down how many grams per ounce to come up with the worst drinks for us.
7. Decide what drinking habits need to be changed.
8. This can also be interesting done with cereal, with one serving placed in a Ziploc bag and stapled to the poster board, then the sugar cubes next to it. My good friend, Ann Luke, did this project and you can see it HERE.

11 Comments

Raymon on February 11, 2016 at 6:58 am

Wow that was strange. I just wrote an extremely long comment but after I clicked submit my comment didn’t show up.
Grrrr… well I’m not writing all that over again. Anyway, just
wanted to say fantastic blog!
- Ariela Osbourne on March 19, 2018 at 6:40 pm
  
  Omg can u just show the procedure so I can copy it thanks ?
Arlena Gipson on April 4, 2016 at 3:24 pm

What can I use besides sugar cubes??????
- Brooke Romney on April 4, 2016 at 7:23 pm
  
  Hi Arlena. You could try packet of sugar or even just put teaspoons of sugar into a Ziploc bag.
  - blessyn on January 5, 2017 at 9:36 am
    
    what can i put the sugar in thank you when you
    - Brooke Romney on January 25, 2017 at 10:52 pm
      
      You can just put it in Ziploc bags and staple it to your board.
- Yeesina on April 8, 2019 at 1:07 pm
  
  You can just use regular sugar. But you need to measure it! ?
  - Brooke Romney on April 19, 2019 at 11:50 am
    
    True!
EulaFMizer on December 17, 2016 at 11:35 am

Keep on working, great job!
LILIANA FIGUEROA on May 17, 2019 at 9:51 am

Hi… What kind of glue did you use to glue the sugar cubes to the board? Thank You
- Brooke Romney on June 1, 2019 at 5:50 pm
  
  We used a hot glue gun.

Science Fair Fun: How much sugar is in what you are drinking?

11 Comments

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