Huwerl Thornton, Jr.
How would your students like to make gelatin and whipped cream? This unit deals with different types of mixtures. There are a wide variety of mixtures in science. This unit will use food to explore and learn about some of those mixtures. The primary mixtures this unit will focus on are solutions, gels, and foams. This unit will also encompass emulsions and suspensions. The students will make KOOL-AID® to represent solutions. They will also make JELL-O® gelatin to represent gels. The students will also make whipped cream from heavy cream to represent foams. We will use the whipped cream as a topping for the JELL-O® gelatin. The unit will allow students to practice following directions by reading recipes and following the instructions. We will talk about what is happening when KOOL-AID® and sugar are mixed with water. This strategy will also apply to JELL-O® gelatin as well as to what happens when we boil the water, and what happens when we hand-whip heavy cream. This unit will be interdisciplinary in nature in that it will cover science and math, as well as reading. This unit will take approximately two weeks and is targeted for second through sixth grade.
(Developed for Science, Mathematics, and Reading, grade 3; recommended for Science, Mathematics, and Reading, grades 2-6)
