How does a drink become an ice pop?

A drink can slosh in a cup. An ice pop can stay on a stick. Both contain water, but much of the water in the pop has changed into ice. The freezer helps make that change by taking heat away.

Heat passes from the juice through its container toward the colder freezer surroundings. As the juice gets cold enough, tiny bits of ice begin to grow. More water joins them. The juice slowly becomes a frozen shape instead of a drink that pours.

The container gives the pop its outside shape. Ice grows around the part of the stick inside the juice. That holds the stick in place. The stick does not make the juice freeze; it gives a hand something to hold afterward.

Sweet juice does not freeze exactly like plain water. Its sugar changes how easily ice forms. Some sugary liquid can remain between bits of ice even when the pop feels hard. A frozen treat can have more than one kind of material inside it.

Out of the freezer, heat moves into the colder pop from warmer things around it. Ice melts, and drops appear. The water has not vanished or turned into something new. Its change of form lets the same drink become a treat on a stick and then become a puddle.