kitchen chemistry | Imamother

mummiedearest ↓

Tue, Oct 04 2011, 9:20 pm

the nature of soap- hydrophylic and hydrophobic combined. for the experiment, try mixing oil and water. note that they always separate. add a few drops of soap and stir, they'll combine. easy enough.

you can dissolve various foods in various liquids and see what you can come up with.

leave an egg in vinegar to see what happens to the shell. (I think it's vinegar that does it, but it needs to be left longer than 45 min)

make meringues. discuss how the egg whites get stiff

make rock candy. again, longer than 45 min, but you can set up the experiment for the students to observe on their own.

yeast-- prime some yeast as you would for challah. you can use dry and fresh, and try it with sugar or honey, with water at different temps. note how the yeast reacts in different environments.

honestly, any form of cooking is chemistry, there should be lots to do.

what age are the students, btw?

↑ mummiedearest ↓

Tue, Oct 04 2011, 9:36 pm

amother wrote:

wow! these are great! thank you for taking the time to type - I have 2 groups I need to do - 2 and 3rd and then 3rd and fourth.
my problem is filling up the 45 minute slot. I was asked to do this for three weeks until they can find a "real" person to do this and I do not see how explaining these experiements would take the full period.

explaining the experiments does not take the full period. it shouldn't be your whole lesson anyway. give the students charts to fill out, put them in groups, let them observe. set a time limit for each experiment, you'll find it takes longer than you think. also, setting up the experiment takes time, factor that in. if you have a bunch of mid-elementary school girls setting up yeast to prime in three separate bowls per group in groups of three girls, I'd bet it would take 5-10 minutes just to set up the experiment properly. if you work with stopwatches to see how long it takes for the top to foam fully for each bowl, they need to know how to use the stop watches. they also need to be able to recognize the result they're looking for, so bring in pictures. observation time depends on how long the yeast takes, and then you need to discuss your results, which should take a few minutes. so first you need to explain how to conduct the experiment and what to look for and some of the principles behind the experiment. then have the students do as much of the setup as possible, it should be seriously hands on. then have them do the experiment on their own with your supervision. then overview. they should either have a chart or question sheet to fill out. if they are old enough, they should be asked to write a lab report on their level. you can give them class time to do that. if you want to take up extra time, give each group a disposable camera and have them photograph each step. you can spend one full period having your students make oaktag posters explaining their experiments and hang it in the classroom or in the hall. they will seriously love doing this. I don't think you need to do more than two experiments per period, and I'm sure some classes can be used for discussion of scientific ideas only without any actual experiments.

nicole81

Tue, Oct 04 2011, 10:20 pm

I'm sorry if I'm totally off base here because I do not teach science, nor do I teach young children, but perhaps you can work the scientific method into your lessons? if they are not familiar with it, just discuss what a hypothesis is, how we can test our hypotheses, etc.

this way you can start the class by explaining the experiment, have the groups discuss it for a few minutes and write up a formal hypothesis on their lab sheet, and then everything that mummiedearest said. (great ideas, btw!)

↑ mummiedearest

Tue, Oct 04 2011, 10:47 pm

nicole81 wrote:

good point, nicole. I somehow assume scientific method to be basic to any lab course. please make sure to cover it and make sure the kids really understand it. I hated those lessons as a kid, but I tutored a hs student over the summer who had no basic knowledge of scientific method, how to write up a lab report, etc. so go with nicole's suggestion, and make it a repeated topic throughout the lessons. (factor that in for another five minutes, if you want Wink

) you will be doing the kids a favor.

btw, I read an article about a family who makes a candy lab with the majority of their halloween candies. the kids soak candies in various solutions of their own device and observe what happens to the candies. then they try to figure something out about the nature of the candy. I think this would be totally fun in the classroom. if you were so inclined, you could do some research into those unpronounceable ingredients on candies to explain why, say, the coating on the m and ms will only lose its color, or dissolve in one solution but not the other, etc. this may actually convince kids to eat less candy. I'm not sure about kosher candies, but there are certain ingredients used in candies that are derived from beetles and other fun sources. you can have a fun class on the really gross sources of ingredients in our food these days. and then you can give them some nice healthy celery to snack on at the end of class Twisted Evil