ingridscience

This activity can be run as a demonstration (maybe merge with veggie smoothie activity), or with students using their own worksheet visiting fruits and veggies laid on the tables.

We eat all parts of the plant, but have bred plants so that the part we eat is larger and tastier.
If necessary, review the names of the parts of the plant (see image and worksheet).

On the worksheet, first connect each label with the plant part.
For each plant on your table/in the garden, identify it, then add its name to the box labelled with the part of the plant that we eat. Some plants may go in two boxes.
Discuss with your group if you are not sure. Optional: the students can open the plants if you need to look more closely.
If you get done early, think of more plant parts that you eat to add to each box.

roots=carrot, parsnip, onion
stem=celery
leaves=spinach, lettuce
flowers=broccoli
fruit=red pepper, tomato, apple

Review what a fruit is, and how it is formed from a fertilized flower. Use the image from "The Reason for a Flower" book, or another image that shows the transition from a flower to a developing fruit.

Time lapse of a pear flowers becoming fruit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHHkmOh942A

Study a portrait as a class or in table groups to find and list as many fruit, vegetables, flowers as possible.

Add the whipping cream to each jar.
Students in a circle, shake the jar, then pass it on.
Shake until the cream is whipped (see first photo), then shake more to separate the fat and buttermilk (see second photo).
Pour out the buttermilk to taste.
Dump out the butter, add a little salt, and eat on bread or crackers.

For a lesson on states of matter, the students point out when they find a state during this activity, whether an ingredient or a new state from a reaction.
Discuss the changes in states of matter while making butter: start with a liquid (cream), which becomes a foamy solid (whipped cream), which then separates into a solid (butter) and a liquid (buttermilk).

For older students, work through the steps of how the molecules are arranged in the cream and butter.

For a lesson on mixtures, every step of this activity is a different type of colloid is formed:
Cream is an emulsion (drops of liquid fat in liquid water)
Whipped cream is a foam (air bubbles in the liquid cream)
Butter is a gel (liquid water droplets in solid fat)
See attached mixtures file for examples of other colloids, and other types of mixtures.

(Song used while shaking with younger students, to the tune of "Row, row, row your boat":
Shake, shake, shake the cream,
Shake it in a cup,
We are making butter now,
Then we'll eat it up)

For a lesson on states of matter, the students pointed out every time they found a different state during this activity, whether it is one of the ingredients or a new state made by a chemical reaction.

Make dough in groups of 3 or 4, then divide once completely mixed (or divide into individual portions, but make sure they are measuring accurately).
Teacher adds water to the bowl. Students add yeast, sugar and mix.
The yeast is a living thing and starts to eat the sugar.
Students add the salt, flour and mix.
Then use hands to knead the dough (stretch, fold and flatten, repeated).

Divide each dough ball into 3 or 4 pieces. Put a piece on each square of aluminum foil for each student.
The students knead some more, then mould into a shape (e.g. pretzel).

Talk about what is happening to the flour as it is kneaded: the flour has molecules in it that are made longer and longer as the dough is stretched, then folded over. They give the dough an elastic texture, that gives the finished bread the light texture.

Leave to rise for a few minutes - a gas is made by the ingredients that make the dough rise.
(During the wait another activity can be run. To isolate the ingredients that make gas test which ingredients make gas or show that yeast eats sugar and makes gas with optional molecule models to model the chemical reaction. See the lesson plans for including these activities.)

Review ingredients/chemical reaction of the bread rising:
What is yeast? A living thing. Breathes like us.
It eats sugar and releases gas bubbles into the dough.
The gas bubbles get stuck in the dough and makes it rise.

Put the bread in the oven:
Add name to each piece of foil.
Brush bread with egg and put in the preheated oven.
Bake at 350 degrees F for about 15 minutes, until brown on top. They may need turning/switching around in the oven.

While the bread is cooking, do another activity: make butter or use molecule models to show the chemical reaction happening between yeast and sugar. See the lesson plans for including these activities.

Before eating the bread, break it open to see the holes in it, made by the expanded gas bubbles in the dough.

Tape the black paper to the back of the jar to create a dark background. This will make the cloud more visible.
Fill a third of the jar with warm water. If condensation forms on the inside of the jar, tip it up to clear it off with the water.
Light a match, blow it out, wait for a second or two, then drop the smoking match into the jar.
Quickly put the bag of ice on top of the jar, so it forms a cold lid over the opening.
Water vapour rising from the warm water condenses onto the smoke particles, and is visible as swirling clouds.
Lifting the ice bag releases the cloud.

This activity is not too dramatic, but does replicate exactly how a cloud forms. See the dry ice cloud for more dramatic demonstration.

Add the ice and salt to the can.
Leave undisturbed for 15 mins.
Add more ice as it melts down.

The ice melts and starts to fill the can with water. The salt lowers the freezing point of the water, so the water can get below 0 degrees centigrade, making the bottom of the can next to the water very cold.
Frost (ice) forms on the bottom of the outside of the can where it is coldest, and dew (water) is on the top of the outside of the can (where there is no cold water on the inside).

There is always water in the air. When it is cold, what happens to the water in the air? It turns to a liquid and makes water drops (like the top of your can). See wet grass in the morning even though it has not been raining. Called dew. (Show image).
When it is really cold, what happens to the water in the air? It freezes into ice (like at the bottom of your can). This happens on the grass too - sometimes the grass is white in the morning. It is called frost. (Show image).

Note that this activity does not work so well in a very warm classroom.

Discussion of what wind is and does: wind is moving air.
Wind is measured by where it comes from. Wind comes from different directions at different times, and brings us different weather.
Make a wind vane to find out where the wind is coming from.

Tape two washers/coins near to the point of the triangle without sticking over the sides (for weight).
Balance the cardboard flat on your finger to find the balance point, then tape a tube over the balance point with the open end facing the outer edge of the cardboard.
Put a skewer inside the tube/pen cap, to make a pivot, and hold the wind vane up to catch the wind. The point of the triangle will face the way the wind is coming from.

Use a compass to check for exactly which way the wind is coming from.

Look at live interactive map of Earth’s winds and find your place on it: https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-…

Temperature tells us how hot or cold it is.
Use a thermometer to measure temperature.

Optional: show chart of Vancouver temperature going up and down with the seasons.

You will each use a thermometer to measure temperatures.
Show the bulb that measures the temperature, which must be surrounded by the thing you want to measure the temperature of.

Start by measuring air temperature in the classroom, to check students are able to read the thermometers correctly.
Optional: write up/graph results and discuss why they are slightly different - air temperature varies slightly around the classroom; my thermometer are not the best, so are not calibrated so accurately.

Then do other temperature measurements:

The temperature of their finger, by placing their finger over the bulb of the thermometer. The bulb can be cooled again by blowing on it. This is useful for seeing the temperature rise, then fall, rapidly.

The temperature of hot and iced water (in insulated cups if you don't want the temperature to change quickly).
Optional: add salt to iced water to make it even colder (can be combined with the frost activity and use a metal can).

The outside air temperature (may be with another outside activity).

Optional: talk about digital thermometers, that look different from these ones, that are in weather stations and other equipment.