Science Buddies: How Blue Is Your Sports Drink?

Do you read the list of ingredients in foods and drinks before you buy them at the grocery store? If you do, you may have noticed that many of the items that are blue in color have the same dye, called FD&C blue 1. In this chemistry science fair project, you will build a simple colorimeter, a device that measures the concentration of colored chemicals in solutions. You will use the colorimeter to measure the concentration of blue dye #1 in sports drinks, and to track the rate at which the dye disappears when treated with bleach.