Gatorade and Sports Beverages

This Chemcases.com unit links the chemistry concepts that the developers of Gatorade considered as they developed the first sports drink. If you have a basic knowledge of thermochemistry and colligative properties such as osmosis, you can follow the development of the beverage and help evaluate three important questions the inventors faced.

Athletes exercise, their energy is depleted, they sweat. How can chemistry reduce the impact of vigorous exercise?

Start by clicking on any of the concepts shown below. These concepts are linked to capsules of information for you to study. The concepts are linked to each other in a concept map.

Symbolism:

Chemists look at the world in three distinct ways. The macroscopic world faces us: water falls as rain or snow, a diamond is hard, talc is soft.

We burn fuel to heat air and the hot air causes a balloon to rise. All of these, the flexibility of an automobile tire, the color of the paint we stir, the effect of the alcohol we drink, are a reflection in the world we see, of the microscopic nature of the unseeable atoms and molecules.

Every step of the way, chemists need a symbolic or representative language to indicate and describe both the macro and microscopic.

None of these representations is perfect, all have flaws, we must learn to understand wht they mean and apply and analyze their message.

Chemical Concepts and Decisions:

We will be observing how scientists use basic chemical concepts to introduce Gatorade, then share their experience of evaluating real-world challenges in product introduction. Issues like human testing of beverages, product ownership and the role of government regulation challenge us to recognize the link between science and responsible decisions.