Summer SAVY, Session 4 Day 1, “The Science of Senses” (3rd-4th)
Hello Families!
I think we set a record for the number of activities and content in a single day! We started getting to know the class with an activity called “Compass Points,” where the students generate their own questions about the class, content, and expectations. In this activity, the students brainstorm what they “Need to Know”, what they are “Excited” about, what “Worries” them, and “Suggestions” for topics. It’s a great way to answer their questions and get them familiar with the topics we will cover. Our favorite question was “Is there a sixth sense?”, which will be a fun question for our last day!
We briefly talked about our big concept for the unit – Discovery, and the students generated ideas about how our senses are part of the discovery process, both in our daily lives and historically. We then launched into our activities. We had 5 primary hands-on activities designed to stretch our understanding of a particular sense. Today we explored Taste. First, we had to do a little background knowledge building by using paper clips to model the difference between atoms, molecules, and chemicals, and the students had to construct a model of Ascorbic Acid using paper clips! Keeping with the intro to Chemistry theme, we then discussed that various foods are solids and liquids–using Skittles to model the movement of atoms and molecules in different states of matter. Students could readily identify foods that are solids and liquids, but asked the question, “Is gas ever involved with food?” (Hint: Popcorn!)
This brought us to one of the most challenging activities of the day – Popcorn. I had prepared two batches of popcorn kernels for students. One was soaked for an hour, and another was roasted for an hour. We then air popped these without telling them which was which. One did not pop at all (the roasted one), and one popped, but only after a long time, and the kernels were “weird” looking! Ask your student to describe what they looked like! Next, students had to generate possible reasons for the discrepancy. This took quite a while, and their ideas were all super interesting. They did come to the correct conclusion by the end, which was that each “normal” kernel contains a small amount of water that turns into gas and explodes the kernel when it is rapidly heated. The roasted kernels did not contain water, and didn’t pop, and the soaked kernels contained too much water, which affected the starch contents of the kernel. Who knew popcorn was so interesting?
This brought us to the Umami, Sour, Bitter, Sweet taste experiment, where each student had something fun to taste and was challenged to describe it without using the name of the item they sipped. Right before that, we watched a brief (and funny!) video of kids trying weird foods from medieval times. After seeing this, students didn’t feel that bad about tasting the tea and soy sauce!
We ended the day with a little food art and analyzed Vincent Van Gogh’s Still Life with Onions (1889). The students had to draw their own still life with fruits, vegetables, and flowers. It looked like a regular art studio as we closed out the day.
We had one great question about taste. . . “What part of the tongue tastes “spicy” food?” This may be an interesting question to look up tonight! Also, we will be having a Zoom meeting for our sound day with a friend of mine who is a sound editor for major motion pictures. He will be joining us from California tomorrow! I’d love it if tonight the students could start thinking about questions they may have for him.
We did A LOT today and will have another busy day tomorrow. This is a great and energetic group, and I had a blast with them. I’m looking forward to having more fun tomorrow!