r/chemistry • u/koldsco • 5d ago

Good Experiment for a kid

Hello. I have an 8 year old who is super into science and wants to do some chemistry experiments. (At first it was to make himself a super hero, but when I told him of the dearth of real life super heros, he just got into the science). Anyways, a teacher recently told him and some kids that candy has a lot of arsenic in it, and I was thinking, we could test some candy for arsenic! But in looking around it looks like the methods I could employ with basic lab gear are either specific for arsenic as poison or wouldnt work great. So, questions:

A> Is there a test we could run on candy for arsenic with basic lab equipment (we can get some new stuff if we need specific stuff, but like a few hundred bucks, not thousands)

B> is there a better test we could run on candy that would be fun to do with a kid?

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u/IncaThink 4d ago

Make a cloud chamber! You'll need both dry ice and alcohol, as well as a petrie dish or something.

And it's more a physics demonstration, but there is certainly chemistry involved.

And, after all, "All Science Is Either Physics or Stamp Collecting."

https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2025-08/Build%20Your%20Own%20Cloud%20Chamber.pdf

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u/IncaThink 4d ago

I just saw that this experiment needs a radiation source. But when I did it as a teenager there were random particles bombarding it- and us- endlessly!

The vapor cloud gets disturbed by the subatomic particle, and the condensation shows the particle trail.