Glass Education for Students, Teachers & General Public

Below is a collection of glass related information and video clips that we have prepared and collected for the general science enthusiast. This also includes material provided by other researchers and links to other great resources available on the web. Let us know if you have other good resources to add!

Sugar Glass - Exploring glass science through hard candy

The materials below are designed to provide a low-cost, hands-on approach to exploring aspects of real material science, focusing on glass science. One of our favorite glass materials is candy glass, an unflavored variety of "hard candy". This can be made from common kitchen ingredients including cane sugar (sucrose), corn syrup and water. The experiment introduces the student to properties of the glass state, how to make their own glass-like materials and interesting experiments from fiber pulling to refractive index, from crystallization kinetics to measiring the glass transition temperature by thermal analysis - all from the kitchen lab. Our emphasis is on learning science through participation with materials and experiments. While our hands-on activities are all designed to be low-cost, they still capture real material science principles and remain open-ended. Some of our more advanced experiments include the using simple micro-controllers and electronic ICs to build powerful instruments for measurement and control.

Educational Resources for Teachers:

Teacher Workshop: Candy Glass Workshop as undertaken at the 2012 American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) Meeting. Includes links to general information; discussion slides; experiments & procedures; other related home-built glass science.

Introduction to Glass and Sugar Glass Experiments:

• Summary of all Low Cost, Hands on Experiments: Low Cost, Hands on Experiment in Glass Science. (Pdf File) A paper by W. Heffner and H. Jain
• Building a Low Cost, Hands-On Learning Curriculum for Glass Science & Engineering Using Candy Glass, An Overview. (Mat. Res. Symp. Proc. Vol 1233, Fall 2009). PDF file
• Sugar Glass demo video of lecture with candy glass making and fiber pulling activity by Bill Heffner, IMI-NFG, Aug. 2007 (Total running time: 46 minutes, real media video file).

How to Make Candy Glass - with Simple Recipe

• Candy glass recipe, instructions and worksheet  (PDF file) by Bill Heffner, IMI-NFG

• More candy glass recipes, instructions and conversion table  (PDF file) by Bill Heffner, IMI-NFG

• Making Sugar Glass at home Video (Video) presented by Bill Heffner, 2008

• Candy Glass at the University Lecture (Video) presented by H. Jain

• Learning the Principles of Glass Science from Candy Making (Ppt presentation) by Himanshu and Isha Jain

• Fiber Drawing Tower (Pdf file) by W. Heffner
• Sugar glass fiber drawing video ( Requires real player) Short video on drawing glassy fibers from candy made from sucrose, corn syrup and water. The video emphasizes the importance of having the right temperature to draw fibers.
• Fiber Drawing Presentation - including a Core-Clad Double Crucible Method (ppt with video) by Tara Schneider, IMI REU 2005

• Measuring Refractive index of Candy Glass (ppt with video) by Tara Schneider, IMI REU 2005

• Measuring Densities of Candy Glassess (PDF with video) by Sean Kelly, IMI REU 2006

• Crystallization in Sugar Glass and Its Melts - Low Cost Experiments in Glass  - Poster presented at Glass & Optical Materials Division of Maerican Ceramics Society, May 2010

• A study of Crystallization of Sugar Glasses (PDF file) showing how the proportion of sucrose to corn syrup effects the tendency of a sugar glass to crystallize.

• A Crystallization Primer - with Nucleation and Growth (PDF file) by Bill Heffner on the basic concepts

• Home Built Temperature Controlled Chamber (Pdf file) A low cost apparatus for temperature control made from a light bulb, coffee cans and a dimmer switch enable students to perform a variety of experiments.

• Surface Crystallization Rate of Sugar Glasses (Pdf file) A quantitative experiment for the home or high school lab. This student's presentation on her Sugar Crystallization Project won awards at the 2007 Pennsylvania Jr. Academy of Science as well as the Delaware Valley Science Fair