Mad Science Camp: Bubbles—with a twist!

I had an idea.  Alright, more of a brain fart.  Would pancake syrup work like corn syrup to make bubbles?  What about honey?  Just like you, I like to use materials on hand.  I bet you have syrup or honey, rather than corn syrup or glycerine.  Pancake syrup is largely corn syrup.  Honey is another viscose liquid.  Home Science Tools has a good explanation about the function of glycerine or acorn syrup in a dish soap, bubble solution.  The bubble membrane is stronger or holds together longer, allowing for larger bubbles.

We did an experiment to test the difference between corn syrup, pancake syrup, and honey.  I had my grandson, Paul, design the experiment.  If you have a bigger camp, ask the kids to figure out how they could test which makes better bubbles, corn syrup or honey?  What do you need to keep the same?  Why?  When I have 40 kids in camp, they work in teams of five or six on experiments.  Three or four to a team is better; our camps are always short on adult help and rely on teens, usually two teens to a team.

Here is the basic bubble recipe we used, but reduced the amounts.  Below are pix and videos.  Yes, it’s a bit of a mess.  BTW the pancake syrup works well—likely because it has corn syrup.  Here is Paul’s report, typos, and all.