Easter science experiments and STEM activities are a fun and educational way to explore science while celebrating the holiday. These projects involve Easter candy, Easter eggs, flowers, and crystals. Plus, there are other resources for you.
Easter Candy Science Experiments
Save a few Peeps and other Easter candies for science and STEM activities.
- Peep S’mores Experiment: Make a tasty treat and explore why marshmallows expand in the microwave. Learn about the properties of gases.
- Candy Chromatography: Eat the chocolate, but use brightly colored candies for chromatography and learn how scientists separate pigments and other molecules based on size, polarity, and charge.
- Make Homemade Pop Rocks: A chemical reactions produces carbon dioxide gas within the candy, so it pops and crackles when saliva dissolves the candy in your mouth.
- Dancing Gummy Bear: This a more advanced chemistry project, where gummy bears or other candies dance amidst purple flames. It illustrates oxidation, combustion, and flame test colors.
Crystal Easter Activities
- Grow a Crystal Flower Tree: This crystal project only needs minutes and you get a stunning crystal tree overflowing with spring crystal “flowers”.
- Make a Crystal Geode: After you peel dyed Easter eggs, save the shells and use them as a base for growing your own crystal geode. Chemically, using the calcium carbonate of an egg is a lot like how some real geodes form, just much faster.
- Crystallize an Easter Egg: Make a dyed Easter egg “extra” by adding a coating of sparkling crystals.
- Grow Rock Candy: Rock candy consists of sugar crystals. Unlike most crystal growing projects, this one yields crystals you can eat.
- Borax Crystal Flowers: Twist pipe cleaners into flower shape and grow crystals over them. Keep the sparkling floral arrangement even after Easter ends.
Flower Science Experiments and STEM Activities
- Make Colored Flowers: Osmosis and capillary action turn a pale flower into a colored flower. Split the stems and get striped or multicolored flowers.
- Make Rainbow Roses: Turn white roses into an entire rainbow of roses and learn about how plants absorb liquid and nutrients.
- Glowing Flowers Project: Explore fluorescence and phosphorescence by making white flowers glow different colors under a black light or in the dark.
- Floral Chemical Reaction: Perfumes mainly use synthetic chemicals instead of natural scents. This safe and simple reaction produces the odor of violets.
Easter Egg Experiments and Projects
- Natural Easter Egg Dyes: Explore color science by making your own Easter egg dyes. Also, some dyes are natural pH indicators, so they change color depending on whether the dye solution is an acid or a base.
- Why Bad Eggs Float: Before you dye eggs for the holiday, make sure they are good and learn about the gases produced by decomposition.
- Change Egg Yolk Color: Changing the color of egg whites is easy, but changing yolk color is difficult because of the high fat content. Here’s how it works.
- Make a Rubber Egg: Soaking eggs in vinegar makes them bouncy like a ball. Use either raw eggs or hardboiled Easter eggs.
More Easter Resources
- Easter Periodic Table: Perform chemistry calculations using a periodic table featuring element cells that are Easter eggs.
- The Flavor of Food Coloring: Easter projects and recipes often use food coloring for bright and pastel colors. Learn whether or not this affects the flavor.