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How much sugar is in kid’s drinks?

June 26, 2016 By Emma Vanstone Leave a Comment

Do you know how much sugar is in kid’s drinks ? We set up an investigation to find out how the amount of sugar differs between common drinks.

We decided to calculate the amount of sugar in the full bottle or container rather than for the same amount of the drink as most people would drink a whole bottle, but as an alternative, you could calculate the amount of sugar per 100ml or 200ml of each drink.

How much sugar is in children’s drinks?

We chose drinks that were not low sugar varieties, but comparing the two would also be an interesting investigation.

Note that this activity was completed in 2016, so the amount of sugar in each could have changed.

Instructions

  • Use the information on the side of the bottle to calculate how much sugar the drink contains.
  • Weigh that amount of sugar.
  • Compare the sugar found in different drinks.

How much sugar is in kid's drinks? Bottles of drink with the amount of sugar weighed out to the side.

Stacking the sugar cubes up gives a better representation.

How much sugar is in Lucozade?

4.6g sugar per 100ml.

Visual representation of how much sugar Capri Sun and Lucozade contain

How much sugar is in Ribena?

The bottle we tested contained 4.6g per 100ml.

How much sugar is in Coke?

10.6 g per 100ml, this is about seven teaspoons of sugar.

visual representation of the amount of sugar in milk and water

Can you turn this into a game and ask a friend to match the sugar to the drinks?

Are you surprised by how much sugar these common drinks contain?

Extension Tasks

Calculate how many cups of sugar you would need to drink to consume the same amount of sugar as one bottle of Ribena. We used this great balance from Learning Resources .

learning resources balance

Can you make your own balance? We used this great K’nex levers and pulleys kit , as a fun alternative.

K'nex balance

Links to Maths

Measurement –  Compare, describe and solve practical problems for mass/weight

                               – Measure and begin to record mass/weight

Does any drink contain ½ as much sugar as another?

More science experiments using sugar

Find out how sugar cubes absorb water in this colourful investigation.

Sugar cube experiments - sugar cubes absorbing liquid

Find out what you can do to help keep your teeth healthy with a science activity using eggs to represent teeth.

Investigate whether sugar dissolves in water , then try to dissolve sugar in oil, warm and cold water and compare the results.

Try some food sorting using hula hoops. Place healthy foods in one hula hoop and less healthy foods in another hoop. Hula hoops can also be used to make a Venn diagram .

healthy food sorting with a hula hoop - kitchen science for kids

Suitable for Key Stage 1 Science

Animals and Humans

Describe the importance for humans of exercise, eating the right amounts of different types of food, and hygiene.

How much sugar is in kid's drinks? Find out how much sugar is in a bottle of coke and other common kid's drinks #kitchenscience #healthyfood

Contains affiliate links

Last Updated on June 13, 2024 by Emma Vanstone

Safety Notice

Science Sparks ( Wild Sparks Enterprises Ltd ) are not liable for the actions of activity of any person who uses the information in this resource or in any of the suggested further resources. Science Sparks assume no liability with regard to injuries or damage to property that may occur as a result of using the information and carrying out the practical activities contained in this resource or in any of the suggested further resources.

These activities are designed to be carried out by children working with a parent, guardian or other appropriate adult. The adult involved is fully responsible for ensuring that the activities are carried out safely.

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How To Make A Sugar Science-Fair Project (VIDEO)

Come and learn how to create an amazing sugar science fair project.

sugar in drinks experiment

Watch what happens when you boil soda and fruit juice. Amaze all your school friends.

sugar in drinks experiment

Sugar Science Fair Project

My son recently competed in his school science fair, I thought it would be interesting to share his results here, and it might give some tips for anyone wanting to conduct a similar science fair project on sugar.

Science fair projects are increasingly popular as people are becoming aware of just how much sugar is in everyday foods and drinks. It is fun to do and children love the shock tactics of hidden sugar.

I was amazed this year how many science fair projects were related to sugar in some way. It’s a hot topic and that is fabulous that kids want to get on board. And seriously, if you want your children off soda and juice, DO get them to try this at home ( with adult supervision of course ).

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  • 600ml (20 fl oz) of each soda and juice were measured. This is a common bottle size, but nowhere close to the 2.5-litre bottles some people drink. Each soda and juice was boiled down leaving the sugar remaining. My son wanted to see just how much sugar is in soda and in fruit juice, and if fruit juice is any healthier.
  • Ask if adults could guess how much sugar is in foods that many people consider to be ‘healthy’

Watch this video I put together of him boiling soda and juice, but there is a warning, you may never drink soda or juice after watching this. It really brings the message home that these drinks are nothing but liquid sugar in a bottle.

That sticky horrid mess left over at the end, he popped into sealed bags for everyone to see. His sugar science fair project is now on permanent display in the science block.

You may notice the gloopy sticky mess that soda and juice become once the water has evaporated. This alone should put you off them. The sugar found by his experiment is pretty close to what the nutrition labels state. It shows the incredible sugar contents of these drinks.

Most have 20 TEASPOONS of sugar. Now I don’t know about you, but I sure won’t be giving my children 20 sachets of sugar when they are thirsty!

And don’t think juice is a healthy option. Sure it may contain some vitamins, but there is no fibre and most are heat treated or made from concentrate. Drinking a glass of juice isn’t the same as drinking the goodness of 6 oranges, it’s the same as drinking the sugar of 6 oranges. Eating whole fruit with it’s fibre is self limiting, juice is not.

Coke 65g (16.25 tsp) – Fanta 83g (20.75tsp) – Orange Juice 80g (20 tsp) – Grape Juice 80g (20 tsp)

By drinking one 600ml bottle of juice or soda, children are drinking almost an entire weeks worth of their recommended daily intake which is 3 tsp/day.

How to display

As you can see by these graphs, not many adults managed to guess how much sugar was in these ‘foods’. The majority of adults underestimated their sugar content by a considerable amount. Remember – read the back (nutrition) of the packet not the front (advertising fluff and wonder).

sugar in drinks experiment

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sugar in drinks experiment

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82 Comments

Libby, Well done, Libby’s son! I work at a high school where health class is mandatory. I have shared this with some teachers and will share with more people tomorrow. And the video ….it needs to go viral! I book mark your recipes. Have made your Fat Head pizza 3 times. I know, I should try your cauliflower crust version, and eventually will, but your Fat Head recipe is so darn good.

Gosh Dee thank you so much. I love going through the comments each morning and yours is really special. My son is loving that his project is getting so much attention and so many mums and teachers have been commented on different Facebook groups how they want to do a similar project. I think the visual aspect of it really hits home. We had to buy 1kg of sugar just to fill those bags! And getting your children to boil soda and juice is so much fun and they really understand why I will not let them have soda or juice anymore. By doing more of these projects, I really feel the sugar free message is slowly becoming mainstream and the shock tactics of all that hidden sugar is really making people read their nutrition labels too. Thanks again for your kind words Dee. Libby x

Hi Libby, love this project! What do the graphs depict? I couldn’t magnify the pictures so I could not see what was being measured on the graphs. Thanks!!

The graphs show each participant’s estimate of the sugar in each food, then the red line is the actual amount. A few overestimated, but the majority underestimated incredibly.

This is great !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Thanks Bob. My son had a fun time doing it too. It was incredible to see how many science fair projects are based on exposing sugar and junk food each year. It’s encouraging.

Very well done to your son! Amazing work he did, he should be very proud 🙂 And hopefully he has taught his classmates (and teachers!) a few things too 😉

Wow that certainly brings home how unhealthy the drinks are, much more than the little plastic bags of sugar. Well done to your son.

Great idea! I definitely agree that there is a heightened awareness around the sugar content in our foods… now we just need people to understand that complex carbs turn into sugar in our blood and have the same effect as simple sugars!!! I wonder how we could turn that into a science project?

i’m so happy to have found this post, bravo!! so excited to see awareness, i remember charts like these when i was little, it had captain crunch and stuff… it really never sunk in how bad it was for me. I’m starting a ketosis lifestyle very soon, and i can’t wait to experience a new realm in wellness.

Ketosis diet saved my life

What a great post Libby. Well done to you, and especially your son, for highlighting much needed awareness.

All the best Jan

Thanks Jan. He is loving the fact that so many people want to do something similar and he is loving the comments flooding in from all over the world.

Brilliant work! If he ever fancies comparing snack bars send him our way 🙂

Hi Libby! My daughter is looking at doing this for her science fair project also. Can you please give the steps you took in boiling down the drinks? At what point was it taken off the heat? Also, how did you get it into the bags then without the plastic melting?

Awesome Cindy, you daughter will have fun doing this. My son weighed the pan cold before adding the soda so he knew it’s empty weight. He then added the soda and boiled it down, stirring occasionally until no more steam evaporated. At this point you keep the heat low as you don’t want to burn it. Once it was cold, he weighed the pan again with the remnants of the soda sludge (sugar) and deducted the dry weight from step one (you can’t weigh a warm pan as it will make the electric scales fluctuate and give an inaccurate reading). You can then put the pan back on a very low heat, just enough to warm the soda sludge (it hardens when cold) but not hot enough that it will burn the plastic bag. Luckily at this point you already know the accurate weight of the sugar so you only need to get as much as you can into the bag for demonstration purposes, you will never remove 100% as it is a gloopy mess. Wash in really hot soapy water and repeat the above for all the soda’s you’re testing. Good luck and feel free to ask any more questions. Libby.

lol I’m in high school and doing this last minute. However I found it helpful to use a small plastic container to put it in afterwards that way people can actually touch the stuff that is left behind

Hi there Lbby, great science fair idea! I’m looking to this with my kids who have just started high school. How did you determine the total amount of sugar left behind after boiling the liquid?

Great Rob, I would love it if this inspired someone else to do this. It’s great fun. Weight of pan with boiled down sugar gloop (g) – weight of empty pan to begin with (g) = Sugar (g) in the soda (once boiled down and all the liquid has evaporated). You have to wait until the pan is cold enough to put on the electric scales and the heat won’t affect the accuracy and weight (which may make scales fluctuate). To remove the sugary gloop from the pan afterwards, just warm enough so it is soft, but not remotely hot, then put the gloop into bags to add to the science display. There may be a small margin of error in this if you don’t make sure that all the liquid has evaporated, but if you are gentle with the heat towards the end, you can see when all the steam has stopped escaping and the sugar suddenly turns toffee like. My boy was only 11 when he did this so maybe if he was in secondary school, he may have done it a little more scientifically with a moisture meter, or such. I hope this helps, Libby.

What grade level is this for???

He was year 7 (age 11).

What research websites did you use.

He had to use the product websites to see how much sugar was in each food item. I refused to buy them 😉

It is so amazing to know how much sugar we intake in every junk food that we eat.Thank you so much for the info.

Thanks so much for sharing!! My son has a science fair project coming up and he wants to do this!!

Brilliant! Go for it.

HEY LIBBY, DO YOU THINK THIS PROJECT IS GOOD FOR A 6TH GRADER?

Sure, you can just adapt it to their level. Go for it.

Love the idea!! What was his hypothesis?

Hi! I wanna know what hypothesis you made for this project? Thanks! 🙂

It was that most people would not realise how much sugar was in foods that many would regard as healthy. Also people would be unaware of how much sugar is in soda and juice.

Libby , In which section of science is this project in ? Eg. Physics,Chemistry or Biology

It was a general ‘science fair’ so it wasn’t categorised (from memory).

okay so im seriously comfused i have to wright a huge 5 page letter about this and now i have no clue what to do because i cant find any of the information any where

Hey, i can’t see the steps for the experiment from the board. Any way u can see it to me?

The video pretty much shows what he did. He just boiled the same quantity of soda or juice. Once all the liquid has been evaporated, you calculate how much sugar by using the equation “weight of the pan with sugar – weight empty pan = sugar”. The majority of his experiment was actually asking a variety of people to guess who much sugar was in foods that most people regard as a healthier option.

What would I use to weigh the pan?

Hi Libby! I was wondering, for the “weight of the pan with sugar – weight empty pan = sugar” thing, what would I use to weigh the pan? I’m doing this for my science fair project, and it doesn’t say what kind of scale I would use to measure it. Thanks, Gigi 🙂

Oops! Where I said “and it doesn’t say what kind of scale I would use to measure it.”, I meant weigh not measure because I need to know how to weigh it, not measure it. Sorry about that! Sincerely, Gigi 🙂

He just used our digital kitchen scales. They measure quite accurately for an experiment like this one. Good luck.

that makes senes

I am doing this for my science fair. How do you measure how much sugar is in the soda once you have the goo from boiling.

The formula is above, but you weigh the empty saucepan, then again once you are left over with the sugar ‘goo’ in the saucepan. Deduct the empty pan weight from the sugar filled saucepan weight = sugar (approximately, it’s not a rigorous scientific experiment here, just a really excellent school project that gets the message across).

I was wondering what orange juice was used resulting in the same amount of sugar as grape juice. All the orange juice I have found has 22 g per 8 oz serving according to the label which is considerable less than grape juice. It was also less than coke according to the label. We are also doing this as a science fair project. I haven’t done any of the boiling down of the drinks or weighing I was just calculating based on grams per serving per label to get an idea of what the results should be.

The photo shows Mccoy orange juice and Mccoy grape juice. Both are pretty shocking yet count as a daily serve of fruit and veg. Unbelievable huh? It’s very hard to find their values as they are not on their company website (funny that). My son used the values from the packaging for the project.

How did you find the measurements for the food?

Which food in particular? I think he chose serving sizes from each packet for the snack food, and chose equal liquid volumes to compare for the boiling experiment.

What would the hypothesis be for this project????

The main body of the science experiment was for people to guess how much sugar was in (what many perceive to be) “health foods” such as low fat yoghurt, dried fruit snacks etc. His hypothesis was that not many people would (and they were shocked as he revealed the answers afterwards). The boiling experiment was an adjunct to his project, a visual guide to shock his class mates. His school asked to keep the project and it is sitting in their science lab, so long may it put them off huh?

My son is doing this proyect for the science fair where I can see all the proyect to have an idea how to do it. Is his first time doing this science fair . Thanks If you can send me at me email appreciate.

Please us the data of your son

I want to do this for my science assignment at school. I tried it yesterday but it stuck to the pot that I used. Did this happen to you? Could you explain in further detail about boiling the certain beverages and if they stuck to your pan?

Thank you very much for your help! 🙂

Yes it does stick, and badly. I bought an old pan from the second hand thrift store. I weighed the pan empty, then weighed it again with all that horrid sticky sugar. Pan with caramelised sugar – empty pan = caramelised sugar. Once I had the results, then I would heat it gently to lift off the caramelised sugar, and washed the pan in hot hot soapy water. Repeat with each soda.

of course where is your dumb hypothesis

Gosh, what an eloquent and highly academic question you have posted for me today. I hope you are so direct and complimentary in real life, as you are online …. It was my son’s science experiment. I am very proud of him. He was 11. His hypothesis was that no one could guess how much sugar was in “healthy foods”. “How much sugar is in that?”

Hi Libby! I was wondering how you were able to remove the sugar off the pan into the Ziploc Baggies. I would really appreciate a prompt response from you! Thank you so much!

Good question. My son weighed the frying pan before and after so to determine the weight of the sugar. Then he pulled out the sticky mess when it was warm and pliable but not so hot that it would melt the bag. The ziplock bags were for the visual element of his experiment. He didn’t need to extract every gram of it, he had already calculated that from weighing. Any leftover sticky mess in the fryingpan, he simply poured boiling water and detergent over to clean the pan ready for the next experiment.

Hi libby. What was your hypothesis for this experiment.

The main experiment was asking a selection of people if they could guess how much sugar was in the “healthy” foods shown on the graphs. The soda boiling experiment was an additional part of his project to highlight soda and juice.

Hi Libby my question is what do the graphs show exactly?

My son is sitting right next to me now (perfect timing) and he remembers they are showing how much sugar his participants guessed were in each “health food” compared to how much is actually in them.

I did this with my daughter, the trick is not to boil it. let the liquid evaporate on low heat. I then poured into sample cups and put them in my dehydrator.

so are you measuring how much other things are in there other than sugar or are you measuring the how much sugar is in a drink?

Oh thanks that makes sense

My school is asking for a Purpose to this experiment…did you have to do this?

The purpose is to create a visual representation of the (supposedly startling) amount of sugar in common soft drinks; and whether or not “natural” drinks like juice are actually healthier than soda pops as far as sugar content goes.

An earlier comment has made a valid point that the “experiment” needs a control. It also needs a hypothesis and subsequent analysis and findings/conclusion. The purpose of an experiment is to validate or invalidate the hypothesis; find it true or false. Without a hypothesis the experiment has no purpose other than it’s probably fun to simmer some Coca-Cola until it’s a bunch of glop.

I would use a hypothesis like: “ Cola has more sugar per serving than Concord grape juice from concentrate.” Or perhaps that it does NOT. The hypothesis has to be a simple true or false statement it shouldn’t be overly complex like “cola has more sugar than conchord grape juice from concentrate but not when it’s sat out and the grape juice is welches and the cola is RC, but if it’s Coke it’s less because of acidity and…” make the hypothesis simple.

The control is to show that the experiment has valid evidence. So something like a placebo is a common control, so using something like a diet drink or even just water which would boil down to maybe some minerals. Anyway record your results and then apply them to your hypothesis and see if you were right or wrong. It’s okay to be wrong! Just make a detailed analysis of why you were right or wrong and conclude with some forward thinking ideas of what your findings could mean for future experiments and how it applies to everyday life. Hope this helps! Remember don’t try and make a hypothesis you know will be correct just to get it right. Do something you think is intriguing! It’s onay to be wrong! Do something like Coca Cola has less sugar per serving than OJ from Concentrate. Who knows!

The thing is you can figure this out by lookin at the nutrition facts so if you want boiling it down to apply to your hypothesis you need to include this in the hypothesis… so something like boiling down 12oz of Coca Cola will produce less sugary glop than boiling down 12oz of OJ… the weight of this glop will be consistent with the grams listed on the nutrition facts… idk lol

Hi my daughter and her friend are doing this project for the science fair and they have to write a independent, dependent, and a controlled variable do you remember what your son put for them?

My son didn’t have these requirements for his project, so sorry I can’t help you out with these. The only “control” he used was for boiling the soda, he used a diet coke.

how did you measure the sugar to find out how much sugar was left?

You measure the pan then deduct the weight of the pan = sugar.

I think a cooler experiment would be to super saturate some Coca Cola with sugar so when you add one granule of sugar it will cause a chemical reaction that pulls all of the sugar out of the liquid so that the bottom half of the Beaker is pure white sugar and the top half is the cola now without any sugar. This would require stoichiometric calculations but be an awesome demo that would show all the sugar!

The Independent variable = The Drink The Dependent Variable = Amount of sugar The Control Variable = The Amount of liquid that you are testing Variables = Amount of sugar

thank you for making my project more easier

These are mine, I did them on different brands of mano juice Controlled Variable = the same amount of mango juice (200 milliliters) Independent Variable = the brand of mango juice Dependent Variable = the amount of residue in milliliters

very nice experiment and its make sense. Nowadays children loved to drink carbonated drink and juice, and this experiment can teach them to do not drink it too much and try to avoid it. a small request from me, not only about juice or carbonated drink but maybe u can do some experiment about food. and i will waiting for that. because your experiment i’m using for my school children. thank you.

Great project. I want to do something similar could you send a picture of the whole board I wanted to see your setup, of course I’ll select different items.

This was very helpful information. But I can’t seem to find the video mentioned.

Very very great !!!!!!??

Hi Libby, what a great project! what drinks did you use to boil? Many thanks!

Thanks Hannah, my son had a great time doing it. He boiled coke (to show how much sugar is in a small bottle), diet coke (to be a control and show no sugar is present), orange juice and grape juice (to show fruit juices are just as high in sugar than a regular fizzy drink).

sugar in drinks experiment

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sugar in drinks experiment

Experiment to See How Much Sugar Is in a Soda

Caspar Benson / Getty Images

  • Ph.D., Biomedical Sciences, University of Tennessee at Knoxville
  • B.A., Physics and Mathematics, Hastings College

You know regular soft drinks supposedly contain a lot of sugar. Most of the sugar takes the form of sucrose (table sugar) or fructose. You can read the side of a can or bottle and see how many grams there are, but do you have any sense of how much that is? How much sugar do you think is in a soft drink? Here's a simple science experiment to see how much sugar there is and ​​learn about density .

Not to ruin the experiment for you, but your data will be more interesting if you compare different types of soft drinks rather than different brands of the same thing (e.g., three types of cola). This is because the formulations from one brand to another vary only slightly. Just because a drink tastes sweet might not mean it contains the most sugar. Let's find out. Here's what you need:

  • 3 soft drinks (e.g., cola, citrus, other fruit like orange or grape)
  • Graduated cylinder or measuring cup for small volumes
  • Small cups or beakers

Form a Hypothesis

It's an experiment, so use the scientific method . You already have background research into sodas. You know how they taste and may even have a sense of which tastes like it contains more sugar than another. So, make a prediction.

  • How much sugar do you think is in a soft drink?
  • Do you think colas, citrus drinks, or other soft drinks contain the most sugar?
  • Out of a group of soft drinks, which one do you think contains the most sugar? the least?

Experimental Procedure

  • Taste the soft drinks. Write down how sweet they taste, compared with each other. Ideally, you want flat (uncarbonated) soda, so you can either let the soda sit out on the counter or stir it up to force most of the bubbles out of solution.
  • Read the label for each soda. It will give the mass of sugar, in grams, and the volume of the soda, in milliliters. Calculate the density of the soda but dividing the mass of sugar by the volume of soda. Record the values.
  • Weigh six small beakers. Record the mass of each beaker. You will use the first 3 beakers to make pure sugar solutions and the other 3 beakers to test the sodas. If you are using a different number of soda samples, adjust the number of beakers accordingly.
  • In one of the small beakers, add 5 ml (milliliters) of sugar. Add water to get 50 ml of total volume. Stir to dissolve the sugar.
  • Weigh the beaker with sugar and water. Subtract the weight of the beaker by itself. Record this measurement. It is the combined mass of the sugar and water.
  • Determine the density of your sugar-water solution: ( density calculations )density = mass / volume density = (your calculated mass) / 50 ml
  • Record the density for this amount of sugar in water (grams per milliliter).
  • Repeat steps 4-7 for 10 ml of sugar with water added to make 50 ml solution (about 40 ml) and again using 15 ml of sugar and water to make 50 ml (about 35 ml of water).
  • Make a graph showing ​the density of the solution versus the amount of sugar.
  • Label each of the remaining beakers with the name of the soda to be tested. Add 50 ml of flat soda to the labeled beaker.
  • Weigh the beaker and subtract the dry weight from step 3 to get the mass of the soda.
  • Calculate the density of each soda by dividing the mass of soda by the 50 ml volume.
  • Use the graph you drew to figure out how much sugar is in each soda.

Review Your Results

The numbers you recorded were your data. The graph represents the results of your experiment. Compare the results in the graph with your predictions about which soft drink had the most sugar. Were you surprised?

Questions To Consider

  • How many sodas do you drink in a day? How much sugar is that?
  • How does soda impact your teeth? ( Test this further using an egg. )
  • In what way, if any, do you think the results would have been different if you had used a freshly opened soda, with lots of carbonation?
  • Would the results have been different if you dissolved the sugar in the first three beakers in carbonated water rather than regular water?
  • A sugar cube weighs about 4 grams. How many sugar cubes would it take, for each soda, to reach the mass of sugar stated on the container?
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sugar in drinks experiment

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

by Brooke Romney | Feb 3, 2014 | Parenting | 11 comments

sugar in drinks experiment

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 .

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11 Comments

Raymon

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

Omg can u just show the procedure so I can copy it thanks ?

Arlena Gipson

What can I use besides sugar cubes??????

Brooke Romney

Hi Arlena. You could try packet of sugar or even just put teaspoons of sugar into a Ziploc bag.

blessyn

what can i put the sugar in thank you when you

You can just put it in Ziploc bags and staple it to your board.

Yeesina

You can just use regular sugar. But you need to measure it! ?

EulaFMizer

Keep on working, great job!

LILIANA FIGUEROA

Hi… What kind of glue did you use to glue the sugar cubes to the board? Thank You

We used a hot glue gun.

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Primary science investigations

  • 2 Air pressure and the antigravity bottle
  • 3 Air pressure, gases and the leaky bottle
  • 4 Dissolving, density and ‘heavy’ sugar
  • 5 Fizzy irreversible changes and bath bombs
  • 6 Irreversible changes and the ‘fire extinguisher’
  • 7 Irreversible changes and the ‘freaky hand’
  • 8 Properties of gases, air pressure and ‘sticky’ cups
  • 9 Properties of solids and ‘biscuit bashing’
  • 10 Viscosity and ‘racing’ liquids
  • 11 Freezing and the ‘intriguing ice’ experiment
  • 12 Liquids, gases and the ‘lava lamp’

Dissolving, density and ‘heavy’ sugar

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Try this investigation to get learners talking about density and the mass of sugar dissolved in their favourite drinks

This resource is also available in Welsh and Irish

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Get the Welsh language version .

The flag of the Republic of Ireland, featuring green, white and orange vertical stripes

Get the Irish language version .

This experiment focuses on the mass of sugar dissolved in fizzy drinks and how this affects whether fizzy drink cans float in water. First watch the video showing the ‘heavy sugar’ demonstration, then find out how your learners can explore the mass of sugar in their favourite fizzy drinks.

Learning objectives 

  • To recognise that objects float at different levels in relationship to their mass/density.
  • To know that mass is the measure of the amount of matter from which the object is formed and is measured in grams.
  • To understand that density is a measure of the amount of mass in a certain volume.
  • To understand the role of sugar in health.

Enquiry skills:

  • To predict, observe, and evaluate an investigation giving reasons for any explanations.

Watch the video

The video below shows how to carry out the ‘heavy sugar’ demonstration.

Source: Royal Society of Chemistry

Investigate the amount of sugar in a soft drink by comparing its weight with a diet drink.

Download the supporting materials

Set up and run the investigation with your class using the teacher notes and classroom slides, featuring a full equipment list, method, key words and definitions, questions for learners, FAQs and more.

  • Teacher notes

PDF  |  Editable Word document

Classroom slides

PDF  |  Editable PowerPoint document

DOWNLOAD ALL

What do learners need to know first?

Learners should understand that objects float or sink depending on their density (how much material mass is found in a certain volume) and whether this is less than the surrounding liquid (it will float) or greater than the surrounding liquid (it will sink).

They should be familiar with states of matter – the basic properties of solids, liquids and gases.

Equipment list

  • Can of diet cola
  • Can of cola (preferably same brand as the diet)
  • Plastic transparent cup
  • Granulated sugar
  • Balance for weighing (optional)
  • Tank two-thirds full of water
  • Other types of soft drinks

Additional resources

  • Investigate the mass of a dissolved gas in our leaky bottle investigation . 
  • Try different dissolving from our collection of video demonstrations exploring changing materials .
  • Read up on dissolving materials in this That’s Chemistry! textbook chapter .
  • Explore the structure of sugar in sweets in the sugar rush edible experiment .

Heavy sugar: teacher notes

Heavy sugar: classroom slides, additional information.

Primary science investigations were developed in collaboration with the Primary Science Teaching Trust

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Air pressure and the antigravity bottle

Photo of scrunched up newspaper balanced on a ruler

Air pressure, gases and the leaky bottle

Photo of a glass of cola with ice in. Next to the glass is seven teaspoons with sugar on.

Fizzy irreversible changes and bath bombs

Photo of seven lit tea lights in a glass bowl

Irreversible changes and the ‘fire extinguisher’

Photo of a jam jar, teaspoon, vinegar bottle and purple plastic glove

Irreversible changes and the ‘freaky hand’

Photo of a balloon stretched over the rim of a bottle

Properties of gases, air pressure and ‘sticky’ cups

Photo of equipment for the biscuit bashing investigation

Properties of solids and ‘biscuit bashing’

Photo of honey running off a honey dipper back into the jar

Viscosity and ‘racing’ liquids

Photo of salt on a spoon, held above a glass of water

Freezing and the ‘intriguing ice’ experiment

Photo of orange fizzy drink in a glass jug with a wooden ruler

Liquids, gases and the ‘lava lamp’

  • Practical experiments
  • Properties of matter
  • Making predictions
  • Recording data

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Rethink Your Drink

Teacher Showing Kids Science Project

Take Action

  • Host a Hidden Sugars Demonstration to provide a visual representation of the amount of sugar in popular sweetened beverages using sugar cubes, sugar packets or teaspoons of sugar.
  • Use a stoplight image to teach kids about drinks they should drink rarely (red), occasionally (yellow), and plenty (green).
  • Teach children to read the ingredients on food labels to identify common high-calorie sweeteners such as high fructose corn syrup, fruit juice concentrates, dextrose, fructose and sucrose.
  • Allow children to bring a water bottle to class to stay hydrate throughout the day.
  • Host a taste test with water infused with lemons, limes, berries, cucumbers, mint leaves or other natural flavors.
  • Post educational signs near the staff lounge, main office, cafeteria and vending machines to help children, staff and visitors identify the healthiest beverage options.
  • Install a water bottle filling station at your school to offer free, cold, filtered water to students and staff.
  • Water is an essential nutrient for life—we can’t live without it!
  • Water represents about two-thirds of our body weight.
  • Water is part of every living cell, and it’s a medium for all metabolic changes (digestion, absorption and excretion), as it helps transport nutrients.
  • Create and post signs around the house about drinking water
  • Limit purchases of sugar-sweetened beverages. Think of unsweetened tea and water. 
  • Host a water drinking challenge that aims at consuming the appropriate amounts of water daily 
  • Try healthy ways to flavor water: infuse with fruit, herbs and other flavorful options.
  • Bring your water bottle with you…. Everywhere! Make your water bottle an essential part of your daily life in everything you do. 
  • Do a family think-tank activity to brainstorm creative ways to increase water consumption 
  • Purcahse a fun, new water bottle that gets children excited about consuming water

Social Emotional Health Highlights

Activities such as these help students explore…

Self-Awareness and Responsible Decision Making:  Children may be able to recognize the overconsumption of sugary drinks as a problem, but they may not see how it affects them personally. For children to develop healthy habits they have to learn how to identify problems, analyze solutions, and reflect on choices. A rethink your drink campaign can teach children the skills they need to make positive decisions for their own health, helping them to develop further self-confidence and self-efficacy. Increasing children’s self-awareness helps them to better recognize how our bodies feel when we are dehydrated or consume too much sugar.

Involve children as much as possible! When conducting Hidden Sugar Demonstrations, let students guess how much sugar is in each drink or measure the number of teaspoons of sugar in each beverage.

Remember, 1 teaspoon of granulated sugar is equivalent to 4 grams of sugar.

Encourage children to drink water first when thirsty.

Serve water, 4-6 ounces of 100% fruit juice or low/non-fat milk at celebrations and events.

Ask parent volunteers to chop fruits for an infused water taste test.

Have volunteers reach out to local businesses to donate reusable water bottles.

For more activities and ideas like this one, be sure to  sign up for our news and updates . And if you like what you see, please  donate to support our work  creating more ways to help build a healthier future for kids.

Additional Resources

Related activities, more water, please.

One of the easiest ways of ensuring kids, school staff and families drink more water is to make water more accessible and fun throughout the day.

Smart Snacks Standards

Is your school smart snack savvy? The “Smart Snacks in School” rule set standards for all foods and beverages sold in schools that participate in the national school meal program.

Categories: Nutrition & Healthy Eating , At School , Digital Resource

sugar in drinks experiment


So how much sugar is there really in that can of Coke or Pepsi you’re drinking? Probably a lot. Watch this science experiment video and see a few different ways you can find out the amount of sugar you’re drinking in your soda or fruit juice.

The answers might surprise you, luckily there’s always water as an alternative.

 

Science Kids ©  |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |  Updated: Oct 9, 2023

Determining the Amount of Sugar in Soft Drinks Introduction: Sodas vary widely in taste. There are colas, like Coke and Pepsi, which taste very different from citrus drinks like Mello Yello and Mountain Dew, which taste different from ginger ale... Even within a category such as colas or orange sodas, consumers claim to be able to distinguish different brands. These sodas vary slightly in their formulas, containing different amounts of the flavors used in combination to create their familiar tastes. One ingredient that varies widely in quantity is sugar. Follow the procedure below to determine the amount of sugar in your favorite soft drinks. Hypothesis: Choose three non-diet sodas. (Suggestion: choose competing sodas, like Coke, Pepsi, and RC, or 7-Up, Sprite, and Slice, that fall into the same general category of flavor.) Have a taste test. Pour a cup of each soda. Taste them and compare the sweetness. Write down a short hypothesis stating which you think has the most sugar.

(Note: Turn in graph sheets and all other work including questions stapled together.)

sugar in drinks experiment

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sugar in drinks experiment

Sugars experiment

sugar in drinks experiment

This is a simple and practical way to get students to discuss sugar content of foods, and leads in to discussion of nutritional content of foods, “healthy” foods etc. It can be run as a competition (either individual or group) in which students have to guess the sugar levels in advance.

You will need

  • a hand-held refractometer, either 0-20, 0-30 or 0-50 Brix or similar 
  • a lemon squeezer and/or juicer 
  • A pH meter or universal indicator paper can also be used
  •  Suggested foods/drinks: Oranges, lemons, tomatoes, fruit juices, Coca-cola, Diet Coke, standard baked beans, reduced sugar baked beans. NB other fruits/vegetables can be included.
  • Prepare juices from fruits
  • Measure and record Brix levels (very similar to % sugar) of all juices, drinks and sauce from beans (Here is a quick tutorial on how to use and calibrate a hand-held refractometer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akptX6HD0tk )
  • As an option you may also wish to measure pH values using the pH meter or universal indicator paper (Here is a quick tutorial on how to use and calibrate a pH meter:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwY-xWMam7o )
  • Another option is to demonstrate the principle of the refractometer – this can simply be done by preparing one or more sucrose solutions (e.g. 30 and 60%) and observing the refraction when a spoon or spatula is dipped into these compared to water.

The science behind it all

The refractometer measures the amount of sugar based on the Brix scale. The Brix scale gives a direct reading of grams of sugar per 100 grams of pure water. If a soft drink gives a measurement of 12 Brix, that means that there are 12 grams per 100 millilitres. So in a 330ml can there would be 70.92 grams of sugar.

Some of your findings might be quite surprising. Your test results should show that Coca-Cola contains less sugar than many fruit juices and diet Coke really does contain virtually no sugar. Lemon juice usually has a surprisingly high sugar content –although note how the pH levels compare to the rest of your samples. Sugar reduced beans don’t actually contain that much less sugar than the standard ones and tomatoes contain a lot of water!

It just goes to show that some foods that we assume have less sugar than others actually have more.

Beyond the science

Sugar can be used for more than just making things taste sweet. Certain types of sugar are popular in the processed food industry because they not only add taste but also add colour, bulk and thickness. They can also be used a kind of preservative to stop mould from forming on some foods.

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Sugar Levels of Different Soft Drinks for Science Projects

Regular soft drinks are chock full of sugar

How to Take Sugar Out of a Soda Science Project

With so many different sugar-filled drinks on the market, discovering the actual make up of any one of them can be an interesting science project. Even without lab equipment to separate the sodas, less sophisticated methods can be used to compare sugar content of soft drinks to each other and to other beverages and foods on the market.

Boil Away the Water

You'll need a scale, small pot, a camera and some graphing paper to document an experiment where you boil away the water content in soda to leave only the sugar. After weighing the soda on a scale, place the soda in a small pan on a stove top and lightly boil it until all the water evaporates to leave the sugar syrup. Measure the sugary syrup again on the scale, making sure to measure in grams. Document the at-home experiment by photos and graphs, showing comparison pictures side by side of the amount of sugar left in each pan and recording exactly how many were grams weighed out. Include cans of soda with any project to show how close home measurements are to the measurement of grams on the can.

Convert Grams to Teaspoons

The grams that are listed on the back of a soda container measure weight, while teaspoons or tablespoons measure volume, but there is a way to demonstrate how many teaspoons or tablespoons are there. Using a piece of paper or parchment paper, calibrate a scale to measure in grams. If a can of soda says 39 g of sugar are in each serving, measure out 39 g of sugar. Funnel the sugar off of the paper and into an adjustable measuring spoon to measure out how many teaspoons the amount of grams equals.

Compare Sodas Side by Side

After converting grams to teaspoons or tablespoons, another eye-opening demonstration is comparing those amounts. Place each can of soft drink next to another. In front of the cans, place a small container with the amount of granulated sugar corresponding to each soft drink. The eye will be able to see which drink contains more sugar than the others; the experiment could be extended to juice drinks and energy drinks as well.

Design a Comparison Experiment

An experiment that tests for the perception of sweetness can be made into a science project. Enlist friends or family to try different sodas and rank their sweetness or to try to tell the difference between natural and artificial sweeteners. To design an experiment, first design a hypothesis, which is what you think will happen. An example hypothesis would be "75 percent of people in this experiment will be able to tell which soda has more sugar in it." A list of materials, procedures and results should be included, and the conclusion should discuss whether what actually happened is what you thought would happen and why you think the results turned out the way they did.

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  • Sugar in Soda Science Experiment.

About the Author

Sarah Thomsen started writing about health in 2006 while pursuing her associate degree in humanities and social sciences. Her published online articles focus on improving holistic health. She holds a Bachelor of Science in nutrition science with a minor in psychology from Russell Sage College and a Health Studies Certificate from Schenectady County Community College.

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Science project, how much sugar.

Fifth Grade Social studies Science projects: How Much Sugar?

Grade Level: 4th - 7th; Type: Psychology/Cooking Science

To find out whether people are aware of the amount of sugar found in everyday foods.

The purpose of this experiment is to measure out the sugar of various foods and find out whether people can correctly determine how much sugar is in certain common foods.

Introduction

In nature, two things have been historically difficult for humans to find: things that taste salty and things that taste sweet. Evolution has designed us to seek out these rare flavors and consume as much of them as we can. Humans crave sugary foods for a good reason. Sugar packs a lot of calories into a small amount of food. For our ancestors, who lived on the edge of survival and starvation, the extra calories in a sugary snack, whether honey stolen from a beehive or fruit found in trees, could mean the difference between life and death. Unfortunately, our taste for sugar has not lessened even as this rare flavor has become easily accessible. We pack sugar into many foods we wouldn’t think to find it in and overload our systems to the point where we can develop diabetes. Much of the sugar we consume every day is hidden in foods that we wouldn’t expect to find it in.

Research Questions

  • Why do human beings crave sugar?
  • What are the advantages to eating sugar?
  • What happens to body chemistry after sugar is consumed?
  • How does the effect of sugar on body chemistry make us desire more sugar?
  • What happens, over time, if a person eats too much sugar too frequently?
  • What does the body do with sugar?

​Terms to Know

  • At least a 2lb bag of sugar
  • A metric scale
  • Various everyday foods (you can use processed foods like soda, candy, and crackers that display the sugar content on the label as well as raw foods such as fruits, vegetables or grains and find out the sugar content on the internet)
  • Empty mason jars
  • A number of volunteers

Experimental Procedure

  • Collect a number of different foods that you would like to see the sugar content for.
  • Using a metric scale, measure out the amount of sugar in your first food.
  • Place the sugar in an empty mason jar.
  • Label the bottom of the jar with which food this represents and how many grams of sugar you placed in it.
  • Repeat steps 2-4 for your different foods.
  • Set up a table with the different foods you used displayed and the jars of sugar lined up from least to most.
  • Have volunteers come to your table one at a time to try to match the jars of sugar with the various foods.
  • When your volunteer thinks they have the correct answer, check their work with them to see which ones they guessed correctly and which ones they were off on.
  • Record the results on a chart such as the one below.
  • Use your charts to find out if there are certain foods that many people guess incorrectly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

  • http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/
  • http://www.visionlearning.com/library/module_viewer.php?mid=61

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Shop Experiment Using Polarimetry to Identify Sugar and Sweeteners in Beverages Experiments​

Using polarimetry to identify sugar and sweeteners in beverages.

Experiment #13 from Food Chemistry Experiments

Introduction

Food chemists must be able to differentiate between various types of sugars in food and beverages. Because sugars can have similar chemical structures and properties, this can often be tricky. Luckily, sugars are chiral molecules that exhibit optical activity. These are easily measured with a polarimeter.

A polarimeter is an instrument designed to detect changes in rotation of plane-polarized light in the presence of an optically active compound. The Go Direct Chemical Polarimeter uses a light sensor and a bidirectional optical encoder to detect the quantity of light passing through the sample at each angle as the analyzer is rotated. A graph is produced that shows clear changes in the light’s polarization with respect to angle. Specific rotation is a property that can be used to identify chemical compounds that behave this way.

A compound will consistently have the same specific rotation under identical experimental conditions. To determine the specific rotation of the sample, use Biot’s law:

α = [α] ℓ c

where α is the observed optical rotation in units of degrees, [α] is the specific rotation in units of degrees (the formal unit for specific rotation is degrees dm -1 mL g -1 , but scientific literature uses just degrees), ℓ is the length of the cell in units of dm, and c is the sample concentration in units of grams per milliliter.

  • Calculate the specific rotation of sugars using a polarimeter.
  • Identify common sugars and artificial sweeteners in everyday beverages.

Sensors and Equipment

This experiment features the following sensors and equipment. Additional equipment may be required.

sugar in drinks experiment

Ready to Experiment?

Ask an expert.

Get answers to your questions about how to teach this experiment with our support team.

Purchase the Lab Book

This experiment is #13 of Food Chemistry Experiments . The experiment in the book includes student instructions as well as instructor information for set up, helpful hints, and sample graphs and data.

sugar in drinks experiment

How to determine the presence of sugar in foods

Easy way to test drinks for sugar

What do grapes and milk have in com­mon? Find out in our cool video!

Safe­ty pre­cau­tions

Per­form this ex­per­i­ment only un­der adult su­per­vi­sion

Reagents and equip­ment

  • heat-re­sis­tant beaker;
  • stove and can­dles;
  • sodi­um hy­drox­ide so­lu­tion;
  • cop­per sul­fate so­lu­tion.

Step-by-step in­struc­tions

Crush some grapes and pour the juice into a heat-re­sis­tant beaker. Add so­lu­tions of sodi­um hy­drox­ide and cop­per sul­fate. Heat the mix­ture on a stove with can­dles. Over time, the so­lu­tion will change col­ors from blue to or­ange. If you pre­pare the same so­lu­tion with milk in­stead of grape juice, the so­lu­tion will also change col­ors.

Pro­cess­ de­scrip­tion

Sodi­um hy­drox­ide re­acts with cop­per sul­fate to form a loose blue pre­cip­i­tate – in­sol­u­ble cop­per(II) hy­drox­ide. Many foods, in­clud­ing grapes, con­tain glu­cose, which can act as a re­duc­ing agent thanks to its struc­ture. Milk con­tains lac­tose, or milk sug­ar, the mol­e­cules of which con­sist of glu­cose and galac­tose. Thus, in both cas­es, cop­per(II) hy­drox­ide re­acts with glu­cose and is re­duced first to or­ange cop­per(I) hy­drox­ide when heat­ed, and then to cop­per(I) ox­ide. The more glu­cose, the bet­ter the re­ac­tion and the brighter the col­or.

Are you keen on chem­istry? You’ll love the MEL Chem­istry sub­scrip­tion !

sugar in drinks experiment

Dozens of experiments you can do at home

One of the most exciting and ambitious home-chemistry educational projects The Royal Society of Chemistry

sugar in drinks experiment

Oversweetened: The Truth About Sugary Drinks

Young people will understand that most popular beverages have a lot of added sugars, and if they drink them too often it can contribute to poor health.

sugar in drinks experiment

9-14 Years Old

sugar in drinks experiment

What You Need

  • Five to six 20-ounce bottles of popular drinks emptied of their contents, but with labels still attached. (Such as Gatorade™, Vitamin Water™, Monster™, Mountain Dew™ Dr. Pepper™ or Starbucks Frappuccino™)
  • Granulated white table sugar (about ½ cup per drink container) or a box of sugar cubes (1 cube = 1 teaspoon sugar)
  • Measuring teaspoon or one per group
  • Small plastic funnel or one per group

sugar in drinks experiment

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Lesson Overview

This lesson helps young people understand the sugar content of popular beverages such as sodas, energy or sports drinks. The youth will measure out granulated white sugar so they can picture the true amount of sugar in these drinks. Young people will think of more healthful options to quench their thirst throughout the day.

Instructor Notes

Before facilitating this lesson, you may want to review the following information about sugar-sweetened drinks. These facts can be shared with young people during your discussions.

  • Added sugars are sugars and syrups which are added to foods or beverages when they are made. Some foods have sugar that is naturally found in them, such as milk and fruit.
  • Americans are drinking more sweetened beverages than ever before. Some beverages have as many as 500 calories. This can be up to a quarter of a person’s calorie needs for the day just in added sugars.
  • Manufacturers will often target their advertising in hopes that if these drinks are purchased by consumers at an early age they will continue to be loyal buyers of that product into adulthood.
  • The body needs fluids to keep healthy; meeting those needs with sweetened beverages is not a good idea and can lead to unhealthful consequences.

Introduction

  • Ask the youth about the types of beverages they and other young people typically drink. Common examples include sodas, sports drinks (Gatorade™, Powerade™, Vitamin Water™), energy drinks (Monster™, Red Bull™), and specialty coffee drinks (mochas, smoothies).
  • Ask the youth if they have ever thought about how much sugar has been added to the beverages? ( Added sugar refers to sugars and syrups which are added to foods or beverages when they are made and do not occur naturally in the drink.) Added sugars can also be found in many other foods including cereal, yogurt and granola bars. Read the Sneaky Sugars handout to learn more about sneaky sugars hidden in common foods and beverages.
  • Too much sugar is not good for your teeth—it can cause cavities.
  • Too much sugar is not good for your heart.
  • Too much added sugar each day can cause you to gain weight if your body doesn’t need those extra calories in one day.
  • We want most of what we eat and drink to be things that are good for our bodies and not fill up on things that are not healthful for us.

Explain to the youth that in this lesson we are going to see exactly how much added sugar is in some popular beverages. In order to do this we need to understand how to read and get the information we need off of the Nutrition Facts label for each type of drink. Show young people the Nutrition Facts Label handout by projecting the image on the board or printing it out. Point out a few significant statistics from the label (such as serving size, number of servings per container, total carbohydrate and sugars).

Tips to teach:

  • One teaspoon of sugar has 16 calories.
  • One teaspoon of sugar weighs 4 grams.
  • Ask for volunteers to demonstrate for the large group or divide young people into small groups. The youth will figure out how many teaspoons of added sugar are in some popular drinks. Pass out an empty beverage container, granulated sugar, measuring teaspoon and funnel (or sugar cubes) to the volunteers or small groups.
  • Multiply the number of servings in the container by the number of grams per serving.
  • Divide that number by four to get the number of teaspoons of sugar per beverage. Young people may use calculators if they wish.
  • Use the funnel to carefully pour the granulated sugar into the empty bottle. Secure bottle top and pass around to emphasize the look, feel and weight of the amount of sugar dissolved in the typical soft drink.
  • How many teaspoons of added sugar do you think might be OK in a healthy daily food plan? Ask them to guess a number, just for fun. The answer is about 3 teaspoons each day.
  • How does that compare with the number you might usually have each day, especially if you are having a beverage with high amounts of added sugar? For most young people it will be a lot less than what they are having each day.
  • Remind young people that water is the best choice to drink throughout the day for thirst and staying hydrated. Water gets the job done. It quenches your thirst, keeps your skin healthy and glowing, and won’t cause tooth decay, chronic (long-lasting) diseases or gaining high amounts of weight.
  • Milk or a milk substitute is a healthful choice with meals and snacks because it’s full of nutrients your body needs.
  • 100% fruit juice doesn’t have any added sugars and can be healthful if you drink small amounts, no more than 4 to 6 ounces each day. (100% fruit juice doesn’t have all of the fiber and nutrients as whole fruit so it’s best to get most of your fruit servings by eating whole fruits instead).
  • What about diet pop and other diet drinks? Although they have no added sugars, they don’t have any nutrients that are good for our body either, so it is best to avoid filling up on diet drinks that do nothing to keep us healthy.

Challenge the youth to read the nutrition label of the next sweetened beverage they want to drink. How many calories and grams of sugar are in it? Remember how the white granulated sugar looks when it’s measured out, teaspoon by teaspoon. See if you can think of a more healthful option to quench your thirst!

Continuing the Conversation

Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish , so that families can talk about alternatives to sugary drinks from their pantries at home.

Additional Instructor Resources

  • CDC Healthy Weight Information
  • Sugary drinks: What every kid needs to know
  • There Are Sneaky Sugars!  –  (Russian)  –  (Somali)  –  (Spanish)
  • What Kind of Sugar is in Your Food?  –  (Russian)  –  (Somali)  –  (Spanish)
  • Check the Nutrition Facts Label!  –  (Russian)  –  (Somali)  –  (Spanish)
  • Reading the Food Label video

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  1. Science Fair Project On Sugar In Drinks in 2022

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  2. Science Teacher Shows How Much Sugar is in Fizzy Soda Drink

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  3. Sugar in Different Drinks?

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  4. Determining Sugar Levels In Drinks Experiment

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  5. Sugar In Drinks Science Project

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  1. Sugar in drinks

  2. HOW MUCH SUGAR IN SOFT DRINKS #shorts #experiment

  3. Cool drinks experiment 😂 #shorts

  4. 6th Da Vinci

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COMMENTS

  1. How much sugar is in kid's drinks?

    We chose drinks that were not low sugar varieties, but comparing the two would also be an interesting investigation. Note that this activity was completed in 2016, so the amount of sugar in each could have changed. Instructions. Use the information on the side of the bottle to calculate how much sugar the drink contains. Weigh that amount of sugar.

  2. Sugar Science Fair Project

    Eating whole fruit with it's fibre is self limiting, juice is not. Coke 65g (16.25 tsp) - Fanta 83g (20.75tsp) - Orange Juice 80g (20 tsp) - Grape Juice 80g (20 tsp) By drinking one 600ml bottle of juice or soda, children are drinking almost an entire weeks worth of their recommended daily intake which is 3 tsp/day.

  3. Experiment to See How Much Sugar Is in a Soda

    Record the mass of each beaker. You will use the first 3 beakers to make pure sugar solutions and the other 3 beakers to test the sodas. If you are using a different number of soda samples, adjust the number of beakers accordingly. In one of the small beakers, add 5 ml (milliliters) of sugar. Add water to get 50 ml of total volume.

  4. How Much Sugar Is Really in That Soda?

    The food industry refers to the percent sugar as degrees Brix, (°Bx) so a 30-percent solution is 30 degrees Brix, or 30°Bx. Sugar is a key ingredient in soda, and in many more of our favorite foods and drinks. It provides the sweetness that makes the soda so appealing, yet is also full of unnecessary calories.

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

    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 ...

  6. Dissolving, density and sugary drinks

    Get the Irish language version. This experiment focuses on the mass of sugar dissolved in fizzy drinks and how this affects whether fizzy drink cans float in water. First watch the video showing the 'heavy sugar' demonstration, then find out how your learners can explore the mass of sugar in their favourite fizzy drinks.

  7. Rethink Your Drink

    Remember, 1 teaspoon of granulated sugar is equivalent to 4 grams of sugar. Encourage children to drink water first when thirsty. Serve water, 4-6 ounces of 100% fruit juice or low/non-fat milk at celebrations and events. Ask parent volunteers to chop fruits for an infused water taste test. Have volunteers reach out to local businesses to ...

  8. Amount of Sugar in Soda & Fruit Juice

    Probably a lot. Watch this science experiment video and see a few different ways you can find out the amount of sugar you're drinking in your soda or fruit juice. The answers might surprise you, luckily there's always water as an alternative.

  9. Sugar Content in Beverages

    beverages. The sugar concentrations are mass percent—a 10% sugar solution, for example, is made by dissolving 10 g of sugar in 90 g of water. ... experiment is that sugar is the main ingredient whose concentration determines the beverage density. This assumption

  10. Determining the Amount of Sugar in Soft Drinks

    Activity/Procedure: Weigh six small (60-100 mL) dry beakers before beginning the experiment. Pour 5 mL of sugar and 45 mL of water into a small beaker. (Note: Be careful to measure the exact amount so that the volume of your total solution is 50 mL) Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Weigh the beaker and subtract the dry weight to determine the ...

  11. Measuring Sugar in Soda

    Fill the bottle with 2 liters of water. Shake until all the sugar is dissolved. This is your 5% sugar solution. Repeat steps 2 and 3 in two other bottles, with 200 grams and 500 grams of sugar. These are your 10% and 25% sugar solutions, respectively. Fill one bottle with just water. Place the hydrometer in the only water solution, and record ...

  12. PDF Experiment #2: Determining Sugar Content of a Drink Objective

    the average of your results. Record your results in table 4.Using a syringe, empty the ho. cylinder and fill it with plain water and empty it again. T. en repeat the procedure for 20%. nd then 30% sugar solutions. Record your results in table 4.6- Now measure the angle of refraction.

  13. Sugars experiment

    Sugars experiment. This is a simple and practical way to get students to discuss sugar content of foods, and leads in to discussion of nutritional content of foods, "healthy" foods etc. It can be run as a competition (either individual or group) in which students have to guess the sugar levels in advance. Materials. You will need. Suggested ...

  14. Experiment with Beverages Science Projects

    Experiment with Beverages Science Projects. (5 results) Discover for yourself what your drink really contains. Build an electronic device to measure the strength of tea or test electrolytes (a salt that can conduct electricity) in a sports drink. Or discover ways to test sugar content in milk or soda. Electrolyte Challenge: Orange Juice Vs.

  15. Science Teacher Shows How Much Sugar is in Fizzy Soda Drink

    A science teacher shows how much sugar is in a fizzy soda drink, by boiling away all the water and leaving the unhealthy residue behind.After about 2 hours a...

  16. Sugar Levels of Different Soft Drinks for Science Projects

    Convert Grams to Teaspoons. The grams that are listed on the back of a soda container measure weight, while teaspoons or tablespoons measure volume, but there is a way to demonstrate how many teaspoons or tablespoons are there. Using a piece of paper or parchment paper, calibrate a scale to measure in grams. If a can of soda says 39 g of sugar ...

  17. How Much Sugar?

    Using a metric scale, measure out the amount of sugar in your first food. Place the sugar in an empty mason jar. Label the bottom of the jar with which food this represents and how many grams of sugar you placed in it. Repeat steps 2-4 for your different foods. Set up a table with the different foods you used displayed and the jars of sugar ...

  18. Fun Science Experiment for Kids: Which Sugary Drinks Are the ...

    In honor of #InternationalDayofWomenandGirlsinScience, we're celebrating with a fun science experiment you can do with your kids using items you already have...

  19. Sugar in Drinks

    In this video, Twinkl Teacher Mitisha demonstrates how you can teach your children all about having a healthy lifestyle using our How Much Sugar is in Drinks...

  20. Using Polarimetry to Identify Sugar and Sweeteners in Beverages

    Food chemists must be able to differentiate between various types of sugars in food and beverages. Because sugars can have similar chemical structures and properties, this can often be tricky. Luckily, sugars are chiral molecules that exhibit optical activity. These are easily measured with a polarimeter.

  21. PDF Determining the Conc Entration of Sugar(S ) in A Soft Drink on The

    In this part of the experiment the students determine the sugar content in various degassed * soft drinks. Sugar solutions of other (unknown) concentrations, as well as other types of drinks (fruit juices, etc.), could be used. Procedure 1. Fill the long plastic tube with a degassed* soft drink follo w ing exactly the

  22. How to determine the presence of sugar in foods

    Crush some grapes and pour the juice into a heat-re­sis­tant beaker. Add so­lu­tions of sodi­um hy­drox­ide and cop­per sul­fate. Heat the mix­ture on a stove with can­dles. Over time, the so­lu­tion will change col­ors from blue to or­ange. If you pre­pare the same so­lu­tion with milk in­stead of grape juice, the so­lu ...

  23. Think Before You Drink Experiment Worksheet / Worksheet

    A useful worksheet for use exploring the hidden sugar content in drinks. All you need to provide is drink bottles/ labels and pupils can investigate the sugar in each drink. Plot your results on our Think Before You Drink experiment worksheet. Twinkl Taiwan Grade 4-6 (age9-12) / 小學4-6年級 (9-12歲) Health & Physical Education / 健體 ...

  24. Oversweetened: The Truth About Sugary Drinks

    Tips to teach: One teaspoon of sugar has 16 calories. One teaspoon of sugar weighs 4 grams. Ask for volunteers to demonstrate for the large group or divide young people into small groups. The youth will figure out how many teaspoons of added sugar are in some popular drinks. Pass out an empty beverage container, granulated sugar, measuring ...

  25. DOC Determining the Amount of Sugar in Soft Drinks

    As of 1998, the average American sugar consumption has risen to 148 lb. per person per year, which is over 1/3 lb. or 600 Kcal per day! In this experiment, we will analyze a number of types of soft drinks to see how much sugar they contain. Objective. To determine the amount of sugar in certain sodas by extrapolating from graphical data.