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Enjoy what happens when a gummi bear is dropped into potassium chlorate.

Cool. Why did I never do this in chem class when potassium chlorate was available to me?

How does it work, I hear you ask? (And where can I get this stuff?) Potassium chlorate is KClO3, and contains one potassium, one chlorine and three oxygen. It comes as a solid salt, but can be melted by a Bunsen burner.

At high temperatures it decomposes to potassium chloride (KCl) and oxygen gas (O2). No bigger. Until the sacrificial gummi bear.

A gummi bear is full of sweet, delicious sucrose, a source of carbon and energy. Add it in and BAM! The trifectar – fuel, oxygen and heat – the ingredients for fire. The reaction is hugely exothermic, producing MORE heat which produces MORE oxygen which drives the gummi bear into complete annihilation.

For more gummi bear destruction try drowning them, stabbing them shortly after hatching, or decapitating them with a laser.

Curiously, it’s always the red gummi bear that gets it. That’s discrimination.