Science Ice-cream Experts I: Making it cold
Concept:
Students should be able to form and characterize different solutions according to provided directions. This will involve utilizing ratios and several different measuring skills.
Anticipatory Set:
How can we freeze ice-cream most effectively?
State Standards:
P.S.5.7.5 Demonstrate techniques for forming and separating mixtures*
P.S.5.7.6 Classify substances as element, compound, or mixtures
P.S.5.7.7 Distinguish among solvent, solute, and solution*
P.S.5.7.8 Investigate the effects of variables on solubility rates
*These were the main standards, but the others were briefly touched on.
Materials:
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Tools for measuring mass and/or volume
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Thermometers
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Ice (really cold ice)
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Water
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Salt, sugar, flour, and anything else that might dissolve in water
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Bowls or cups
Prerequisite Skills:
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Measuring
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Ratios
Key Questions:
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Why do we want cold water rather than ice? o Water transfers heat better than ice.
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Which solute creates the coldest water?
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Why do they put ice on the road when it is snowy and icy?
Management and Organization:
I foresee a few points of difficulty with this lesson. First, it will be important to limit the use of solutes. For this reason, students will be required to prepare proposals before

receiving rough-measured bags of solute. Also, record keeping may be difficult for the students. This difficulty is also partially overcome by requiring students to form proposals before performing an experiment. Part of their proposal should include a table to be filled in as the experiment is executed.
Procedure:
Students develop and perform experiments to try and determine the best ratio and solutes to form coldest temperature of water for use in later lesson. Students must justify an experiment before they are allowed to execute it. The students justification must include proper terminology.
Discussion and Follow-Up Activities:
The class will compare results to select the best ratio of salt to ice for making ice-cream.
Additionally, this will be briefly revisited when we make ice-cream.
Assessment Plan:
The success or failure of this lesson will be determined by how well students complete their lab notebooks.
Extension and Enrichment:
I may try to find solutions with interesting properties for use in extension activities.
Reflection:
This lesson went extremely well. The students were in generally successful with some of the students getting very involved and competitive. Even the students that were usually less involved really got into this exercise. I think that it helped that I maintained control of the salt and sugar because students would occasionally request way too much. Also, I made students specify the mass they were requesting. It made them uncomfortable at first, but they got used to it.

Science Ice-cream Experts II: How Many Flavors
Concept:
The idea of this lesson is to use a small number of ice-cream flavorings to discover that a large number flavor combinations are possible. This is then related to the way a relatively small number of elements forms the large number of compounds we experience.
Anticipatory Set:
I hope to have a couple of posters that serve as unfinished advertisements for an icecream parlor. The unfinished bits will be filled in as students discovered the necessary information.
State Standards:
PS.5.7.1 Explain how a small number of naturally-occurring elements can result in the large variety of substances found in the world
PS.5.7.3 Identify compounds as substances consisting of two or more elements chemically combined.
Materials:
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Samples of ice-cream flavors
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Copies of the periodic table
Prerequisite Skills:
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Addition and Multiplication
Key Questions:
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How many flavors of ice-cream can we make?
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In what way does this relate to the large variety of substances in the world?
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How is this different than large variety of substances in the world?
Management and Organization:
The task here is very simple therefore it will be important to have some good extensions for those that finish early.
Procedure:
Lay out the premise that you are thinking of starting an ice-cream business and would like to know how many flavors you will be able to serve. Because you are trying to develop reproducible recipes, all units of measurement must be standard. You could

allow students to work in any units that make sense (either volume or mass). Once students have completed the task, use what they have done as an analogy to discussing molecules formed from elements of the periodic table.
Discussion and Follow-Up Activities:
Once the students have calculated the number of flavors available, try to develop a naming convention. See if you can steer the conversation toward two letter abbreviations and subscripts.
Assessment Plan:
This lesson will be successful if the students are able to determine the number of possible flavors. If wildly successful the students will be able to start developing a general rule for calculating the number of flavors.
Extension and Enrichment:
Although some flavors technically exist, they may never be created. Why not? Others are very common. Why? How does this relate to the way atoms form molecules? Can you think of any common combinations?
Reflection:
I was pleasantly surprised that this went really well. I thought that the students made the connections between the ice-cream example and the relation to the periodic table.
Additionally, students did an exceptional job of figuring out how many combinations there were. It went surprisingly fast so I had to fill in a bit with more information at the end even after going through the extension and enrichment I had thought about ahead of time. The class went as follows. First, I told the students I was going to open an icecream shop and I wanted to beat Baskin-Robin 31 Flavors. I started with 5 example flavors and had the students in each class generate 10 more (total of 15). We then started as a class to list all the one flavor combinations (15) and then the two flavor combinations. The number of two flavor combinations that we got varied because some classes would count double flavors (i.e. chocolate chocolate) and other classes would not.
This class decision was revisited when we discussed the elements and molecules where you can have things like N2 or O2. After the two flavor combinations we determined the number of three flavor combinations. Then the total possible number of combinations is the sum of the one, two, and three flavor combinations. At this point, I had the students look at a periodic table and discuss how this related to the ice-cream exercise. I tied in the flavor combinations that would never actually be made because it would taste horrible
(i.e. peppermint-lime) and how some combinations of elements work well together while others do not form compounds. I asked about the order and arrangement of the table, but did not reveal the details; I just wanted to get the wheels turning so the students think about it for a couple of days.

Science Ice-cream Experts III – LN2
Concept:
In this lesson, students will use liquid nitrogen to make ice-cream. During the course of this lesson, students will be exposed to safety rules, boiling points, and other fun stuff.
Additionally, other demonstrations will constantly be going on in the background. These will include freezing things, balloons in a bucket, and the Leidenfrost effect.
Anticipatory Set:
Large dewar will hopefully provoke some interesting thought from the students.
State Standards:
Materials:
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Nitrogen
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Styrofoam containers
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Balloons
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Stuff to freeze
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Half and Half
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Sweetened condensed milk
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Various extracts for flavoring
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Styrofoam cups
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Spoons
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Pipettes
Prerequisite Skills:
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None
Key Questions:

How is this different than the ice-cream we made before?
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What other uses of liquid nitrogen are there?
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Why is liquid nitrogen 77K? In what way does this relate to water boiling at 100 degrees C? What if we turn the heat up?

When we are done, is the nitrogen part of the ice-cream? Why or why not?
Management and Organization:
Safety must be a concern when dealing with liquid nitrogen (especially when 7 th
graders are involved). It is important to have fun with this stuff, but it is also important to emphasize the safety issues.

Procedure:
Use some basic recipe for ice-cream to prepare a base mix (i.e. one quart of half and half combined with one can of sweetened condensed milk). Make sure to create enough mix for every student in advance that way you won’t need to make more as the day progresses. Have only two or three flavors available (i.e. vanilla, banana, and strawberry).
Each student should get a small amount of nitrogen in a Styrofoam cup, a small container of their chosen flavor, and a pipette for making ‘dots’. The students should use the pipettes to drop (not squirt) mix into the liquid nitrogen forming dots of ice-cream. Once most of the nitrogen is used up, pour off the excess, have the students wait a few minutes for the dots to get above 77K and let them eat it.
Discussion and Follow-Up Activities:
Future lessons will refer back to the activities that occurred today, but there are no specific discussions and activities planned.
Assessment Plan:
Hopefully, there will be a small section of a quiz or test that contains some testing of the facts (e.g. What is the boiling temperature of LN2?), as well as a deeper conceptual question or two (e.g. The temperature of a pot of boiling water is 100 degrees C. What temperature will it be if I turn the heat up?).
Extension and Enrichment:
None planned
Reflection:
We modified the activity slightly allowing for the students to create more ice-cream faster than the pipette method allowed. The modification was to pour the mix through a strainer into a bowl filled with LN2. By waiving the strainer around as the mix flowed through, small drops were formed. Then, the ‘dots’ were scooped out with another strainer. We were able to push approximately one student per minute through the station.
Our recipe ended up being one or two spoons of sweetened condensed milk, about twice that in half and half, and a couple of drops of extract. We had the students make their own mix and stir it up in a Styrofoam cup. Then we had the pour the mixture through the strainer. Finally, we scooped out the dots for them using another strainer. As we handed them their cup, we told them to wait at least 10 minutes before they tried to eat any, and then to try a small amount as a test before eating any large pieces. If they did not, they ended up learning the hard way why you do not lick a freezing pole. There were usually one or two students in each class that provided us with a good laugh. We warned them sufficiently before about the dangers that they all knew to melt it off (not rip it off). The other demonstrations went well. They were just some of the fairly standard demonstrations so there is nothing revolutionary to report here.

Geography Ice-cream Experts I – Examining Location
Concept:
In this lesson, the students will be required to research a European location for a proposed ice-cream shop. They will be tasked with developing a list pros and cons based on the geographic location of a potential ice-cream shop.
Anticipatory Set:
State Standards:
Materials:
Prerequisite Skills:
Key Questions:
Management and Organization:
Procedure:
Discussion and Follow-Up Activities:
Assessment Plan:
Extension and Enrichment:

Reflection:

English Ice-cream Experts I – Formulating a Plan
Concept:
The idea here is to provide students with an opportunity to develop persuasive material.
Using an ice-cream parlor theme, the students will try to persuade potential investors.
They will need to integrate materials from geography, science, and math to generate both a written document and a presentation. Students will have to work together to generate a
Anticipatory Set:
State Standards:
Materials:
Prerequisite Skills:
Key Questions:
Management and Organization:
Procedure:
Discussion and Follow-Up Activities:
Assessment Plan:
Extension and Enrichment:

Reflection: