Roasting Marshmallows

Roasted Marshmallows

A perfectly roasted marshmallow, like the one pictured to the right,  takes patience.  If it is too far from the heat it will never roast and if it is too close it will end up black and charred.

Roasted Marshmallow

Open Ended

Describe the marshmallows before and after being heated by a flame, focusing on changes in their properties (color and texture).

The two main substances that make up a marshmallow are corn syrup and sugar. The table shown to the right contains the chemical formula of corn syrup and sugar and the percentage each of them make up a marshmallow.  

You will be analyzing data from experiments on these substances to better understand the complex phenomenon of roasting marshmallows.

Marshmallows

Multiple Choice

The image shown includes the symbols of atoms and the chemical formulas for both corn syrup and sugar How many different types of atoms make up corn syrup?

• 5
• 4
• 2
• 3

To better understand the phenomenon of roasting marshmallows, the two main ingredients were each heated for 20 minutes on a hot plate with consistent temperature.  Photos and data tables from the two experiments are shown below. 

You will be using data from these experiments answer the following question:

Are these experiments chemical or physical reactions?  How do you know?

Open Ended

Is the heating of sugar an example of a chemical or a physical reaction? Include information from the data table from both before AND after the sugar was heated.

Open Ended

Is the heating of corn syrup an example of a chemical or a physical reaction? Include information from the data table from both before AND after the sugar was heated.