One of the most frequent questions I get is, “What program do I use to make all of my pictures?”  I thought I’d devote a little time to share this information with all of you.

After using many photo editing software programs over the years, I stumbled upon a relatively unknown software (at the time) that gave me all of the “extras” I needed:

Comic Life

Plasq’s Comic Life program (for both Mac and Windows at www.plasq.com) helps families have a little fun with their photographs.  Importing photos into the program is a simple drag-and-drop procedure.  Once your photos are uploaded, it is easy to create professional-level comics complete with thought bubbles and 3D titles with the existing fonts on your computer.

If you have seen any of my work within the Classic Science Textbooks, you have noticed individual “cartoon-style pictures” that I created.  What you have not seen is an extended property of Comic Life which can create entire pages of cartoon templates automatically!

I have to be honest with you… this software comes with a price ($25 for the Standard edition/$30 for Deluxe.)  Now before you open your wallets, there is a 30-day free trial which I highly recommend!

You will also find a ton of information on the internet concerning Comic Life and how it can be used both for fun and educational purposes.  You can check out one of these resources at http://www.macinstruct.com/node/69

The ease of this program to create comics of this quality satisfied my “inner comic book geek” quickly (I always wanted to be a cartoonist when I grew up.)

I’m certain your family will find new joys in approaching your photo albums with this software!

You’ve learned how important crystals are to the creation of hard candies like butterscotch and peanut brittle and soft candies like fudge, but are there any times when you would want a candy without ANY crystals at all?

Well, the candies I just mentioned all have one specific property about them (and it’s not their simple ingredients of sugar and water.)

Can you guess what it is?

If you said that you can’t see through them (which is what scientists call opaque “oh-pay-kuh”) you are correct!  The opposite of being opaque is to be transparent.  Objects that are transparent, like windows, allow light to travel through them very easily.  And since I’m throwing around some scientific terms, let’s review some basic concepts about science that may come in handy this week:

Light cannot easily pass through most candies that are formed from crystals.  The crystals tend to get in the way of the light passing through the candy and block it from traveling through.  This makes an object opaque.

MAKING EDIBLE GLASS

The texture of transparent candy is much different than the other hard and soft candies we have explored so far.  The trick to make this type of candy is to first boil off most of the water within your sugar syrup.  Yep!  You want all of those ATOMS inside water to absorb as much heat energy as you can so that they will evaporate into the atmosphere!

By removing so much water from the syrup, you have increased the DENSITY of sugar molecules within the solution.

THIS IS GOOD!  REMEMBER – THE MORE WATER A SYRUP CONTAINS, THE SOFTER THE CANDY WILL BE

You’ve never seen a SOFT glass before right?  No way!  This type of candy is going to look AND feel like glass! So you need as much water out of that solution as possible.

After making your sugar solution incredibly hot,  the next step is to keep the sugar molecules from sticking together and forming crystals.

You may believe that the formation of crystals means that something new is being created within the solution.  However, if you have been following this blog for any period of time you would know that this does not happen!  ATOMS cannot be created (or destroyed) during the formation of crystals.  The LAW OF CONSERVATION supports this beautifully!  All that is happening is the rearranging of ATOMS within the solution into a crystal structure!  Okay, back to the candy…

Any crystals at all will cause this molten mass of sugar to turn into an opaque mess very quickly!

In order to keep these sugar molecules from binding together you have to DIFFUSE their energy away as quickly as you can!

This means you have to lower its temperature very very quickly.  If you don’t lower the temperature fast, the molecules will slow down and move into each other.  This is bad!  As they slow down, they start to stick to each other, and this is how crystals are formed.

Since crystals are made up of several sugar molecules bound together, they are large enough to block light as it passes through the candy.  This causes the candy to be opaque.  (I know I already said that once in this post, but it is very important to the next few lines…)

However, when you cool a sugar solution really fast, the sugar molecules get “stuck” in the cooling fluid and do not have the energy to move around and bind to each other.  And, since sugar molecules are so tiny, light does not bounce off of them.  This makes the candy transparent.

By the way – this is almost exactly how people make sheets of glass!  Naturally, the windows on your home are not made of sugar molecules (please don’t go around the house licking your windows.) Instead, a molecule called silicon dioxide is melted, poured, and its temperature lowered to create most of the glass that we typically find in our homes!

Movie makers have known about this property for YEARS!  In fact, it is a pretty good guess that the majority of bottles and windows that are broken over actors within the movies are made from this rapidly cooled syrup!

By the way, I’m still waiting to see the outtakes at the end of a movie where an actor starts sucking on a broken piece of “candy glass.”  I know it will happen someday…

Learn more about chemistry concepts (and many more) in the Classic Science: Series for the Family and be certain to come back every Thursday or subscribe to The Blog of Mr.Q to learn more about how to teach science during breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

Let’s review a couple of things before we dive into another way to change the texture of candy.  First of all, you learned the following rule in Part I of How To Teach Science With Candy:

THE MORE WATER A SYRUP CONTAINS, THE SOFTER THE CANDY WILL BE

This rule has to do with the TEMPERATURE  of the heated sugar water solution.  The higher the temperature of syrup, the less water it will have as it boils off and DIFFUSES into the atmosphere.

In Part II of How To Teach Science With Candy, you learned about another rule in candy making:

HOT SYRUPS FORM ROUGH, JAGGED CRYSTALS AND COOLER SYRUPS FORM SMOOTH, SMALLER CRYSTALS

This means that hot syrups contain many ATOMS that have absorbed a lot of energy and are bouncing around inside the solution.  All of this bouncing keeps sugar molecules from binding together very easily into crystals.  (How easy would it be for you to hold on to someone if an army of people kept slamming into you?) However, the few crystals that DO happen to form grow very quickly as ATOMS continue to bind to their surface.

So the big question is – How do we make smooth textured candies?

Before we tackle that question, let’s review the four main concepts of science:

IT’S TIME TO STIR THINGS UP!

You just read that “cooler syrups form smooth, smaller crystals.”  Therefore, all you need to do is make certain that the syrup you have cooked is cooled down considerably before you start…

STIRRING!

As a syrup solution cools, its ATOMS are DIFFUSING their energy into the bowl and the environment in the form of heat.  As this energy leaves the ATOMS, they slow down to the point where they are not bouncing into each other anymore.  When this happens they cannot bind to the crystals that exist within the syrup.  However, you can force sugar molecules together by STIRRING the solution!

In fact, you create a massive amount of sugar crystals as you stir the cooled syrup.  This means the DENSITY of sugar crystals increases as long as you keep stirring the solution!  This is very good if you want a smooth candy with lots of tiny crystals!

Remember… larger crystals are formed in hot syrups as many of the newly created tiny crystals are broken apart by fast moving sugar molecules.

Not only are there slower moving sugar molecules in a cool syrup, there is another cool trick to making smooth candies with lots of tiny crystals:

As more and more sugar crystals are formed within the cool syrup, there are fewer sugar molecules floating around in the syrup.  With fewer free sugar molecules moving around, the existing crystals will be unable to grow very large!

This is the secret to having bulging arm muscles when making fudge.  In order to get the smooth texture of this delicious dessert, you need to mix the cooled syrup very hard for a very long time!  Because if you stop stirring, you stop making smaller crystals!  This means the existing crystals in the syrup immediately begin to grow very large!  This will make the texture of your fudge gritty and coarse.

It may SOUND like it’s no big deal, but you’ll be sweating before you’re done!  It take a lot of stirring to make fudge!

Okay… quick review:

Hot syrup = fewer, large crystals

Cool syrup = more, smaller crystals

Making crystals = no destruction or creation of any atoms (Don’t’ forget the LAW OF CONSERVATION!)

Learn more about chemistry concepts (and many more) in the Classic Science: Series for the Family and be certain to come back every Thursday or subscribe to The Blog of Mr.Q to learn more about how to teach science during breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

Last week you learned that nearly all of the candy we know and love comes from a heated solution of sugar and water.  But even with these few ingredients, cooks have learned how to manipulate several of the variables in the cooking of this solution.

However, the temperature of the syrup not only affects the TYPE of candy you can create –

It affects the TEXTURE of the candy too!

The way in which cooks can alter the texture of candy has EVERYTHING to do with the four basic concepts of science:

These four concepts are very important as your candy cools and forms its own unique texture.  These concepts play a big role in the creation of your candy, especially if you want the smooth texture of fudge or the rough and jagged texture of rock candy.

GAZE INTO THE CRYSTAL BALL…

Fudge and rock candy have COMPLETELY different textures!  The reason for this change has to do with the number and size of the crystals in the syrup.  If you recall from our discussion on ice cream, a crystal is a mass of ATOMS or molecules bonded together in an orderly fashion, like soldiers in formation.  The cool thing about crystals in your syrup is that they will continue to bind with other similar ATOMS or molecules that are moving around in the fluid.

Think of a line of children, all holding hands, running around a playground.  The two children at the ends of the line can grab other children as they move around the playground and increase their size.  This is how a crystal grows as well!

And there is one simple rule to follow about crystals whenever you are making candy:

HOT SYRUPS FORM ROUGH, JAGGED CRYSTALS AND COOLER SYRUPS FORM SMOOTH, SMALLER CRYSTALS

But how does this work?  It’s simple…

As you probably have guessed, the ATOMS within your heated solution of sugar water absorb energy from you stove as its temperature increases.  This energy DIFFUSES into each of the ATOMS, causing them to bounce around and into each other quite a lot.

Because of all this bouncing going on, it is harder for molecules to line up, bond with each other in an orderly fashion, and form a crystal.  So, hot syrups do not make many crystals because of all the energized ATOMS bouncing into each other!

To go back to our previous story… it would be very difficult (not impossible) for a line of children to form on the playground if they were running around as fast as they could.  Think about it… as a line of kids would form, they could easily get broken apart by individual children slamming into them!  The few lines that would form could get VERY large as they have so many extra children to grab onto.  This is the same with crystals in a hot sugar solution.

Once crystals can form inside a hot sugar solution, other sugar molecules will tend to bounce into this crystal and bind with it – making a larger crystal!   Therefore hot syrup will have a lower DENSITY of sugar crystals but each crystal will be MUCH larger than crystals in cooler syrup.

THESE LARGER CRYSTALS GIVE HOT SYRUP A VERY ROUGH AND JAGGED TEXTURE WHEN IT COOLS

Okay.  Are any ATOMS created or destroyed during the formation of crystals?  Nope! It may seem like something strange is going on when you witness the growth of a crystal, but you know for certain that all of this movement follows the LAW OF CONSERVATION! There’s no way any ATOMS are being created during crystal formation, only rearranged into new (and sometimes tasty) forms.

Learn more about chemistry concepts (and many more) in the Classic Science: Series for the Family and be certain to come back every Thursday or subscribe to The Blog of Mr.Q to learn more about how to teach science during breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

Whether you prefer lollipops or peppermints, cotton candy or caramels,  they all share the most simplistic list of ingredients – sugar and water. Scientists (aka – “cooks”) have spent lifetimes learning how to melt, stir, heat, and cool down this syrupy solution to produce all of the candies we know and love today.

Think about it!  A simple mixture of sugar and water, with the proper handling, can end up as a thick syrup, a glass-like ball, a stretchy blob. a semi-solid mass….  I could go on and on!

So how can two simple ingredients be converted into such a HUGE variety of candies?

We have learned how to handle this simple solution by controlling the amount of sugar and water, how hot the solution gets, how much it is stirred, and how quickly it cools.

The true art of knowing how all of these factors can be changed to provide the type of candy we want is the topic of these next few posts.  But first, let’s look at the four main concepts of science to prepare for today’s discussion:

This week, we are going to look at the basic formation of crystals within the cooking of sugar and water.  You should be familiar with how crystals are formed when we looked at the Science of Ice Cream.

Let’s get started…

CONCENTRATE ON THE SUGAR

Since we are only looking at two basic ingredients this week, let’s play around with how much of each we can mix together AND what that does to the creation of our candy.

Below is a simple rule to follow when making candy:

The more water a syrup contains, the softer the candy will be.

First of all, water itself boils at 100 degrees Celsius.  However, when you add sugar into the water, the temperature at which water boils INCREASES a little bit.  Why?

To put it simply… the sugar gets in the way!  The ATOMS within sugar molecules compete with the water molecules as they absorb heat energy from the stove.  This means that the water molecules cannot boil as fast because some of the heat energy is DIFFUSING into the sugar molecules.  Because of this, you have to add MORE energy into the solution of water and sugar (which raises the temperature) in order for the water molecules to absorb enough energy to break away from each other and escape as a gas.

So what does this have to do with making soft candy?

As you heat up a syrup, it’s temperature will continue to rise because its ATOMS are vibrating around in the container quite a lot.  As more water molecules DIFFUSE into the air as water vapor the DENSITY of the sugar molecules remaining in the syrup will increase.  Therefore, the remaining syrup becomes more concentrated with sugar.

Another way to say this is…

As the temperature of the syrup increases, its sugar DENSITY increases as well.  This causes the candy to become more and more firm as you continue cooking it!

KEEP AN EYE ON THE TEMPERATURE

Cooks can easily prepare a huge variety of candies by simply watching the temperature of the syrup!  For example:

• The spreadable, fruity preserves we place on our toast is the result of the syrup reaching a temperature of 102-113 degrees Celsius.
• Fudge needs a temperature between 113-116 degrees.
• Caramels begin to form around 118-121 degrees.
• Marshmallows appear around 121-130 degrees.
• Taffy forms between 132-143 degrees.
• Butterscotch candies and other brittles (think Peanut Brittle) appear around 149-154 degrees.
• And so on…

Do you see a pattern with these candies as the temperature increases?

As the temperature increases, more water evaporates out of the candy and it becomes more firm.  Therefore…

The more water a syrup contains, the softer the candy will be!

Naturally, all of this movement of ATOMS follows the LAW OF CONSERVATION beautifully because no ATOMS are being created or destroyed, merely rearranged throughout the environment!

Okay… the firmness of a candy can be easily changed by altering the temperature of the syrup.  But how do you change its texture? Stay tuned to next week where you will learn another cool trick that candy makers have learned over the years.

Learn more about chemistry concepts (and many more) in the Classic Science: Series for the Family and be certain to come back every Thursday or subscribe to The Blog of Mr.Q to learn more about how to teach science during breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

In past entries, we have explored the concepts of starch, flour, gas production with leavening agents and how all of this affects the baking of dough.  Last week, we even looked at how cookies spread out during baking and firm up as they cool.  The “hidden mysteries” that exist within the kitchen should not be too great of a mystery at all!

(That is, if you know what you are looking for.)

It all comes down to some basic concepts that can be hard to witness in real life:

If you have been paying attention, you should have a pretty good idea how a semi-solid goo like batter can turn into a firm cake in the oven:

• The batter rises as gas bubbles within the mixture gets larger in the oven.
• Starch from the flour begin to swell as water DIFFUSES into its structure.
• Protein within the egg stretches out to forms a firm “web” within the cake and hardens as it cools.

All of these changes follows the LAW OF CONSERVATION as ATOMS within the heated cake batter are not created or destroyed, just rearranged into delicious ways.

However, if I have learned ANYTHING by studying science is that there are ALWAYS hidden factors that can easily affect all of these rearranging ATOMS.  And there is a lot of rearranging going on inside that sticky, gooey fluid within your mixing bowl – before, during, AND after the baking is done.

One of these “hidden” factors is easily overlooked by most household cooks (unless they live in areas like Denver, Colorado.)

AIR PRESSURE

You feel the effects of a change in air pressure every time you fly in a plane, travel up or down a mountain, or submerge yourself under the water.

Air pressure is defined as “the weight of the air above a certain point on the Earth.”  So if you think about it, a person like me who lives in Missouri has much more air pressure pushing down on my body than my friends who live in Denver, Colorado.  The air pressure in Denver is not nearly as great because the entire Denver area is over 10 times HIGHER in the air as compared to Missouri!

SO WHAT DOES AIR PRESSURE HAVE TO DO WITH MY CAKE?

Well, the heat you add to your cake batter is needed in order to speed up ATOMS, create gas bubbles, melt sugar, and stretch out protein into long strands to make the texture of your cake.  Right?

And areas with higher air pressure, like Missouri, have a greater weight of air pushing down on the cake batter as it is cooking.  Therefore, the greater the pressure, the more energy it takes for liquid molecules (from the egg and melted butter or fat) to escape from the batter and become a gas.  Because of this increased pressure, it takes more energy (crank up the oven!) to bake your cake at lower elevations.

Do not confuse this increased or decreased weight with the DENSITY of air over these two cities.  Remember, DENSITY is the amount of ATOMS that can be found in a certain area.  For example, the amount of air molecules in a one-mile area above Denver AND Missouri may be the same.  However, there is MORE air between Missouri and outer space than there is above Denver. All of these extra air molecules give Missouri a greater air pressure compared to Denver.

Is that as clear as mud?  Or perhaps cake batter?

Most recipes we read are for areas of high air pressure because most of us in the United States all live at lower elevations.  However, if you followed a Missouri recipe to bake a cake in Denver, many bad things would probably happen:

• First, your batter will lose its moisture much faster because there’s not as much air pressure pushing it down into the batter.
• Second, the bubbles of gas within your batter will increase much faster because there is not as much air pressure pushing in on them and keeping them small.
• Third, the protein and starch firm up much slowly because the batter temperature does not get as hot.

Therefore, your light and fluffy cake in Missouri will probably end up dry, dense, and flat.  Yuck!

SO HOW DO YOU FIX THIS PROBLEM?

• First of all, you can always add a little more liquid to the recipe.  Since heat will DIFFUSE faster through a liquid at low air pressures, the increased liquid will allow for evaporation to take place for a longer time.
• You can slow down the expanding bubbles of gas by reducing the amount of leavening agent in your recipe.  This reduction will keep plenty of gas bubbles in your cake AND keep it from becoming too DENSE during the baking.
• And third, you can speed up the firming of protein and starch by reducing some of the other ingredients, like sugar and fat, from the recipe.  These ingredients tend to get in the way of protein and starch during their firming process.  Reducing them from the recipe will allow your cake to firm up much faster!

Learn more about chemistry concepts (and many more) in the Classic Science: Series for the Family and be certain to come back every Thursday or subscribe to The Blog of Mr.Q to learn more about how to teach science during breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

COOKIE

As you know, cookies come in a variety of shapes, styles, and flavors.  However, most cookies share the same common ingredients:

I could spend weeks explaining how the four basic concepts of science can be found within these basic ingredients.  However, I was always taught that “Less is More” so let’s look at how these four concepts are found in the BAKING of our cookies:

For the record, I’m going to be discussing the baking of drop cookies (like chocolate chip or oatmeal cookies.)  It’s not that I have a personal favorite (oatmeal cookies) and it is not my wish to offend any bar- or cut-out cookie fans, it’s just a random decision (yeah right) I have made for this post (because oatmeal cookies are the best.)

THE INGREDIENTS ARE ONLY THE FIRST STEP

The proportion of ingredients helps to create the crumbly, crisp, or chewy texture of a cookie.  For example, shortbread cookies are made up of much more flour than water which helps to provide a crumbly texture.  However, if your ingredients consist of more water than flour, you can end up with a crispier cookie, like a wafer.  Drop cookies are somewhere in the middle.  They have about half as much water in them as flour.

Where does the water come from?

Well, I’ve never seen a recipe for oatmeal cookies that require water as an ingredient.  However, there is plenty of water within the eggs and fat (butter) of most drop cookies.

HERE COMES THE SCIENCE STUFF…

Flour and water help create the variety of cookies we know and love, but it is SUGAR that gives a cookie most of its structure and texture.  Drop cookies tend to contain equal amount of flour AND sugar.

The high DENSITY of sugar molecules within the soft cookie dough of drop cookies goes through several changes as you heat them up in the oven and cool them off on the counter.

Remember – A molecule is a group of ATOMS which are bonded together.  In the case of sugar, you are looking at a large number of Carbon, Hydrogen, and Oxygen ATOMS.

Sugar molecules tend to stick together very well.  Thousands (if not millions) of sugar molecules are bound together in every single visible grain of sugar!  When heat energy is added to this collection of molecules, they tend to shake or vibrate away from each other.  You have seen this happen when ice melts…  The molecules of water absorb heat from the environment and moves away from each other to form liquid water.  Well…

SUGAR DOES THE SAME THING!

THE SECRET INGREDIENT IS DIFFUSION

As the solid sugar molecules break apart (DISSOLVE) in the presence of heat, the molecules tend to move away from each other by the process of DIFFUSION.  And the cool thing is that you can witness this diffusion every time you bake drop cookies.  Your little ball of soft dough spreads out all over the cookie sheet.

How does this happen?

The liquefied sugar, combined with the water in the eggs and butter, cause the soft dough to spread out onto your cookie pan during baking.  That’s right!  The dough DIFFUSES throughout the cookie sheet.

What happens after you turn off the heat?

This is an easy one to answer.  Let’s return to our story about water…  What happens to liquid water when you take away all of its heat energy (think of a glass of water inside a freezer.)  You guessed it!  The liquid water will freeze into a solid.

This is what happens to liquefied sugar as well!  The sugar molecules change back from a liquid into a solid and give your drop cookie a firmer, cake-like texture.

A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS…

Unfortunately, the average life of a homemade cookie is very short.  Even if you store them in an airtight container, they will eventually show their age.  This follows the LAW OF CONSERVATION which states that ATOMS cannot be created or destroyed, only rearranged.

During the demise of your oatmeal cookies, no ATOMS are altered in any way.  It is the process of DIFFUSION that is responsible for their untimely “death.”  Let me explain:

It is true that the texture of drop cookies changes rapidly over the course of a few days.  These soft and chewy cookies tend to DIFFUSE their water into the environment rather easily.  Without this water, your cake-like oatmeal cookies tends to resemble a hockey puck.  Yuck…

So if  you have learned anything from all of this it should be….    EAT THOSE COOKIES AS FAST AS YOU CAN!

Learn more about chemistry concepts (and many more) in the  Classic Science: Series for the Family and be certain to come back every Thursday or subscribe to The Blog of Mr.Q to learn more about how to teach science during breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

By far, my favorite topping on ice cream HAS to be an all-time favorite…

THE STRAWBERRY

Strawberries were a favorite dessert in my family.  I remember my grandmother serving me a bowl of this amazing fruit and it was always found in bowl of its own sweet juices.  I never even questioned HOW she could create all that juice from just a handful of berries.

I figured out this “secret” after watching her prepare this treat…

SHE SPRINKLED SUGAR OVER THE FRESHLY CUT BERRIES!

There is a lot of science behind this seemingly simple recipe and ALL of it follows the four main concepts of science very well:

We already know that all of that juice that rests at the bottom of your sugared berries doesn’t come from nowhere, right?  It HAS to follow the LAW OF CONSERVATION which states that ATOMS cannot be created or destroyed, only rearranged.

THIS MEANS THE JUICE MUST COME FROM INSIDE THE STRAWBERRIES!

The movement of juice from inside the berry into the bowl is due to DIFFUSION.  You see, sugar begins to dissolve in the small amounts of water found on the surface of the berries.

Scientists call the molecules that dissolve in a fluid a SOLUTE.  The fluid itself is called a SOLVENT.  And, when a solute is dissolved into a solvent, a SOLUTION is formed.

Okay, back to the story…

Scientists would say that a sugar solution is formed on the surface of the berry.  This is very important to the DIFFUSION of juices.

The entire purpose of DIFFUSION is to spread out a group of ATOMS evenly.  But if you have more molecules of water INSIDE the strawberry than on its surface, the water molecules start to DIFFUSE through its surface and towards the OUTSIDE of the strawberry.

Scientists call this process OSMOSIS (“oz-moh-sis”) which is the movement of ATOMS through a membrane in which an equal DENSITY of solute are eventually found on BOTH sides.

The result of this DIFFUSION is a very sweet juice in the bottom of the bowl.  The longer you let the strawberries sit in the sugar solution, the more water will move into the bowl, and the more shriveled up the berries will look.

My grandmother may have never known about the four basic concepts of science, but she certainly knew how to put together an amazing dessert!  Thanks Grandma!

Learn more about chemistry concepts (and many more) in the Classic Science: Series for the Family and be certain to come back every Thursday or subscribe to The Blog of Mr.Q to learn more about how to teach science during breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

With the hot weather coming our way, I would guess that many of you are going to need some refreshing desserts to cool you down.  This week, not only are you going to learn the science behind ice cream, you are going to learn how to MAKE ice cream!  Let’s get to the good part first…

Here’s what you need:

Here’s what you do:

Pour all of the ingredients except for the ice and salt into the quart-sized baggie. Seal it up and mix well!

Place the ice and rock salt into the gallon-sized baggie.

Now place the sealed baggie with your cream mixture into the larger baggie and seal it up.

Shake the bag from side to side for about 10 minutes. You may want to cover the bag in a towel if your hands get too cold.

Open the gallon bag to remove the smaller baggie when the blended mixture has solidified into ice cream.

What’s going on?

The four main concepts of science are easy to observe while making ice cream:

The ATOMS that are found within the liquid milk have a lot of energy as they move around freely and bounce into each other and the side of the baggie.  It is very easy to DIFFUSE energy from a warmer liquid (like milk) into the ice within the baggie.  Remember, DIFFUSION is the movement of atoms (or energy) from high concentrations into low concentrations.

Ice has to absorb energy in order to melt. When you use ice to cool the ingredients for ice cream, the energy is absorbed from the ingredients and from the outside environment (like your hands!)

When you add salt to the ice, it lowers the freezing point of the ice, so even more energy has to be absorbed from the environment in order for the ice to melt. This makes the ice colder than it was when you put it in the baggie!

This super cooled ice DIFFUSES more and more heat energy from the liquid milk.  As the ATOMS within the milk lose energy, they slow down, line up (like soldiers in formation), and form what is known as crystals!

Many people may believe that the creation of this frozen dessert is nothing short of magic.  Naturally, we already know that you have not created any new ATOMS with all that mixing of the baggie.  The creation of ice cream follows the LAW OF CONSERVATION which states that ATOMS cannot be created or destroyed, only rearranged.

And you rearranged a lot of ATOMS with all that shaking!

The real question is about the DENSITY of the newly created ice cream.  If you stopped shaking your mixture too early, you probably noticed that you had a pretty thick fluid that was only partially frozen.  If that was the case, your “ice cream” was really just frozen water mixed with the proteins and fat (inside the milk) and the sugar you added to the baggie.

If, however, you mixed your creamy dessert very well by shaking it around a lot you may have received a much less DENSE ice cream.  But how?

As you shook your baggie, you mixed in air bubbles within the freezing ice cream.  These bubbles get in the way of ice crystals as they begin to freeze together.  The result is a fluffier, less DENSE ice cream as the solid ice crystals get spread out a greater distance!

You want much fewer ATOMS inside a teaspoon of ice cream as compared to a teaspoon of liquid milk…  SO DON’T GO EASY ON THAT BAGGIE!  SHAKE IT UP!

Learn more about chemistry concepts (and many more) in the  Classic Science: Series for the Family and be certain to come back every Thursday or subscribe to The Blog of Mr.Q to learn more about how to teach science during breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

Okay, I saved the best for last.  We are going to check out the “granddaddy” of all spicy foods. No other veggie can brag about such remarkably strong sensations as the fruit-bearing shrubs that are native to South America.

Grab a glass of milk and some tissues because it is time to dig into the…

CHILE PEPPER

There is a lot of science to be found within the chile pepper, and we are going to look at a few of these facts.  Fortunately, a solid understanding of the four basic concepts of science will help us out considerably:

BRING ON THE ATOMS

In the past three weeks, we learned that onions, garlic, and mustards store different kinds of molecules (groups of ATOMS) within their cells in different areas.  When we chop up these veggies, these molecules are allowed to come into contact with each other.  When this happens, these molecules rearrange their ATOMS into those delicious spicy-flavored chemicals.  Of course, all of this follows the LAW OF CONSERVATION as no ATOMS are created or destroyed throughout this movement.  However…

NO ATOMS REARRANGE TO PROVIDE THE SPICY CHEMICALS INSIDE CHILE PEPPERS!

You don’t need to wait for any rearranging of ATOMS within chile peppers to cause that amazing sensation.  Chili peppers make a special molecule known as capsaicin (“kap-say-sin”) which causes that feeling of heat in your body.

Chile peppers are mostly hollow on the inside and have a light-colored tissue which hangs below its stem.  Attached to this tissue (called the placenta) you will find the seeds of the pepper.  For years, people believed that the spicy capsaicin molecules were located within the seeds of a chile pepper, but this is not true!

IT IS THE PLACENTA THAT PRODUCES NEARLY ALL OF THE CAPSAICIN WITHIN CHILE PEPPERS!

Naturally, whenever you cut open a chile pepper you will cut through the placenta.  This will cause the capsaicin to DIFFUSE all over the seeds and tissues of the pepper (and your fingers too!)

You REALLY want to be careful not to touch your eyes after chopping up a chile pepper!

NOT ALL CHILI’S ARE THE SAME!

There are many different kinds of chile peppers in the world and all of them contain a different DENSITY of capsaicin.  The greater the DENSITY of capsaicin – the spicier the pepper.

For example, many people can eat the popular Jalapeno pepper by the handful!  Is this pepper hot?  Oh yeah!  But fewer people would ever TRY to eat a Cayenne pepper.  Cayenne peppers have THREE TO FIVE TIMES the amount of capsaicin within its placenta!

PUTTING OUT THE FIRE

Inside your mouth you have little sensors (like the ones that are in your car or computer) that can tell you if anything dangerous is going on.  Whenever you bite into a chile pepper, your saliva does an excellent job at DIFFUSING the capsaicin throughout your mouth and onto these sensors.

When this connection is made, the sensor sends a message to your brain that there is a HUGE amount of heat within your mouth.

Even though capsaicin DOES increase the temperature of your mouth a tiny bit, your brain may believe your mouth is on FIRE!

Naturally, the best way to put out the “fire” that is raging in your mouth is to remove the capsaicin.  But how can you do that?

DRINK MILK

There is a molecule in milk that sticks very well to capsaicin and will actually pull it away from the sensors in your mouth!  Neat trick, huh?  The coldness of the milk doesn’t hurt, either. If you don’t have any milk around, try some sour cream, yogurt, or ice cream. All of them have the same molecule.

Another way to cool the fire is to drink a sugar water solution (like Kool-Aid) as the sugar tends to reduce the capsaicin’s effect on your tongue.  Jalapeños and Kook-Aid?  I know it sounds a little strange, but it works!

We’ve spent a lot of time focusing on foods we typically find at the dinner table.  I think it’s time we start looking at our sweet tooth!  Next week we begin the series, “How To Teach Science With Desserts”

Learn more about chemistry concepts (and many more) in the  Classic Science: Series for the Family and be certain to come back every Thursday or subscribe to The Blog of Mr.Q to learn more about how to teach science during breakfast, lunch, and dinner!