Question: i've done the practical about the jelly baby ... what makes the energy in the jelly baby to "scream"?

Suze Kundu answered on 16 Jun 2011:

Hello! Lovely to chat to you earlier!

So, in a screaming jelly baby experiment, we add a chemical called potassium chlorate. This is an oxidising agent, which basically breaks up molecules of sugar in the jelly baby. There is loads of sugar in a jelly baby, and so as the bonds in the molecule break, a huge amount of energy is released in one go. It’s a bit like an explosion, where the energy is released as sound so that you can hear it, heat so that you can feel it, and bright light so that you can see it. It’s all energy from the sugar bonds in the jelly baby!