Easter Peeps Science Experiment

Peeps are a classic holiday candy, especially at Easter. They are full of sugar and gelatin – and they are terrible for your health – but they sure are fun!

If you’d like to find something to do with your Easter Peeps that doesn’t involve eating them, try using them for an Easter science experiment that will be both fun and educational for the kids!

Note: For more Easter fun, see my Easter activities for Kids page.

There are a lot of varieties of Easter peeps you can choose from, including bunnies, chicks, eggs, etc. We used pink bunnies for our experiment, but any of the other Easter peeps should work just as well.

We placed one peep each into the bottom of three glasses.

We then filled each glass with a different liquid.

We chose to use water, vinegar, and clear soda as our three liquids.

If you have kids who are old enough, this would be a good time to have them make a prediction about what will happen to each of the peeps as they sit in the liquid. Write down their predictions so you can re-visit them once the experiment has concluded.

About two days later, we checked on our peeps again.

The liquid in the water glass had turned quite pink, much more so than the liquid in the vinegar and soda glasses.

As for the peeps themselves, the one in the vinegar had started to noticeably disintegrate. Its outside was white and frothy looking.

At first glance, the peeps in the water and soda didn’t seem to have changed much at all.

However, we removed the peeps from the liquid and placed them onto a tray to examine them more closely.

In removing them from the glasses, it was apparent that the despite the fact that they looked similar in the glasses, the peep that had soaked in soda was more fragile than the peep that had been in the water. In fact, the poor soda peep lost its ear as we transferred it to the tray!

We then took a fork and gently pushed down on each of the peeps to see what would happen.

Nothing interesting happened when we pushed down on the peep that had been in water. It still had a pretty substantial feel to it and didn’t squish all that much.

The peep that had been in vinegar continued to break down and disintegrate, as it had become very squishy and not firm at all. White bubbles spread out all around the peep when pressure was applied.

The peep that had been in soda was also very squishy. Its insides started to burst out as we pressed down gently on it, as if it was ready to disintegrate.

If your children wrote down their predictions at the start of the experiment, be sure to revisit their predictions and see how accurate their predictions were. If their predictions completely missed the mark, discuss why the results you got were so different from their predictions.

All in all, this was a fun experiment and the results were a bit surprising.

One way you could change up this experiment is to use different liquids. Another option would be to compare outcomes after different soaking times (e.g., 24 hours vs. 72 hours).

More Easter resources

More Easter posts from Gift of Curiosity:

• Easter Game: What’s in the Bag?
• Easter Printables Pack
• Fizzing Easter eggs
• Easter sensory bin
• Easter egg sound matching game
• Easter Bingo
• Easter do-a-dot printables
• Easter coloring pages
• Easter I Spy game

For more Easter activities and printables your kids will love, see my Easter Activities for Kids page and my Easter Pinterest board.