Ice Cream In A Bag - STEAM Program

What better day to share this easy, cheap and yummy program idea than National Ice Cream Day?? This is a fun "Kitchen Chemistry" experiment that just has a few easy to obtain ingredients and supplies, is easy enough for the little ones, but will appeal to older kids as well. What's better than a chemistry experiment you can eat?? And yes, it really works!

Ingredients & Supplies

• half & half
• sugar
• vanilla extract
• salt, preferably kosher
• ice
• pint zip-lock bags (heavier freezer bags recommended)
• gallon zip-lock freezer bags
• sprinkles, mini choc. chips, or other mix-ins (optional)
• fruit juice (optional alternative to dairy)
• towels or gloves/mittens
• thermometer (to check starting and ending temperatures)

Directions

1. Add 1/2 Cup half & half, 1 Tablespoon sugar, and 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract to small zip-lock bag and seal. Shake to dissolve sugar.

2. Fill gallon zip-lock bag about 1/2 full with ice (check and record the starting temperature of the ice) and add 6 Tablespoons salt and shake to evenly distribute.

3. Place smaller, sealed bag containing cream mixture inside the larger bag containing the ice and salt mixture, add a little more ice and seal. Shake entire bag and contents for 5-10 minutes (5 is usually enough for soft ice cream). This gets very cold, so it is recommended to either wear warm gloves, or wrap the bag in a towel (a towel will also help insulate and keep it cold).

4. After 5-10 minutes, ice cream should be ready! Carefully remove inner bag containing ice cream. Check and record the final temperature of the ice/salt/water mixture. You may be surprised by how much it dropped!

5. Ice cream will be creamier if you quickly but gently squish it around a little bit in the bag. Not too much though, or it will melt!  You can add desired mix-ins, such as chocolate chips, cookies pieces, etc. at this point as well. Ice cream may be eaten directly out of the bag, or spooned into a dish, and garnished as desired. It will begin to melt immediately, so dig in!

6. An alternative to ice cream is to make sorbet from fruit juice. Juice can be used straight out of the bottle, but I like to dilute it slightly with a little water and add a teaspoon of sugar, as it seems to taste less sweet when frozen. This is a great option if dairy allergies or lactose intolerance are an issue. I have not tried non-dairy milks, such as soy or almond, but I would imagine they would be more icy and not creamy. 

Sorbet made with cran-raspberry juice.

So, how does this work? The chemistry of this is a little tricky to explain, but it has to do with phase-changing and the lowering of the freezing point of water by the dissolved salt.

The ice begins to melt, providing just enough liquid water to start dissolving the salt. The dissolved solute depresses the freezing point of the solution, allowing the temperature to continue to drop rather than remain a constant 0 degrees Celsius. The temperature drops because the remaining ice absorbs some of the energy (in the form of heat) from the salt water as it continues to melt (an endothermic reaction) . You can explain the chemistry either in the beginning, during the shaking time, or after. 

This experiment does not take very long, so you could do ice cream first, and have time to try making sorbet (those who already made sorbet due to dairy issues could try a different flavor), or combine it with other simple "kitchen chemistry" experiments. A couple of good ones to pair with this would be the old picking up an ice cube with a string trick, and making butter from heavy cream in a jar (or small plastic container).

For a library program, display books for check-out with other simple at-home science experiments, fiction or non-fiction books featuring or mentioning ice cream or the dairy industry, and cook books (especially any explaining the science of cooking).

Today At The Desk....

Today was a little less harried at the desk than it has been lately, and I was very glad of that because it allowed me to devote my time and attention to a sensitive reference question that came up.

A patron approached the desk, and asked if I could help her find books for young children about death and grieving. When I gently asked if she could give anymore information about the situation they were dealing with, I found out that their had unfortunately been a pregnancy in the family that ended in miscarriage, and the kids were having a hard time understanding what had happened and that there was no baby anymore, even though a significant amount of time had passed.

I cautioned her that we probably would not have anything on that specific situation, but that I would pull together what I could find and bring them to her to look over. Unfortunately, as I suspected, most of the children's books we had on death and grief dealt with the loss of a pet or a grandparent, and tended to focus on the idea that they had lived a good life and to take comfort in memories, which wouldn't be helpful in this situation. I did find a couple of general books on explaining death, which I gave to her. I also told her that if they googled "how to talk to kids about miscarriage" there were several web articles that might be helpful.

As I continue to search online to try to find a book title or a particularly helpful web article to recommend, I luckily came across one that mentioned two titles of books for children about miscarriage. I was thrilled to actually find that a book existed on such a specific topic. They were both out of print, but one looked like it could be purchased used for a reasonable price. I also said ILL would be an option as well, and I wrote down the titles for her and told her just to let us know if she wanted to try to get them through ILL.

As I continued to look on Amazon, I found three other books listed under "What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item" that looked even more promising as they were either more recent, or had customer review, and one is still available through Baker & Taylor, so we are going to order a copy for the collection.  Here are the titles I found, starting with the one available through B&T:

• Molly's Rosebush by Janich Cohn, 1994
• We Were Gonna Have a Baby, But We Had an Angel Instead by Pat Schwiebert, 2003
• Something Happened: A Book for Children and Parents Who Have Experienced Pregnancy Loss  by Cathy Blanford, 2012
• Goodbye Baby: Cameron's Story by Gillian Griffiths & Lindsay MacLeod, 1999

I felt very bad for this family having to deal with such a loss, and I can imagine how hard it would be for young children to understand. I was so glad I was able to find some titles that might be helpful, even if they weren't in our collection, and glad for the atypically slower day that allowed us to talk quietly and privately, and the time to devote to keep digging and digging, until I found something.

Magic Cabbage Juice - STEAM Program

Here's a quick and easy STEAM program that falls under the "Kitchen Chemistry" heading. This experiment uses mostly things that people might have in their kitchen already, or could be easily obtained the next time you're grocery shopping.

In this experiment we will make a natural pH indicator from purple cabbage. The pigments that give purple cabbage its color are in the anthocyanin family, a group of color-changing, water-soluble cyclic compounds. They may appear red, purple, or green depending upon the pH. pH-sensitive anthocyanins are also found in other brightly colored fruits, vegetable, and flowers, but purple cabbage has pigments that cover the broadest range of pH and produces the most color changes.

[For a quick chemistry refresher, pH is a numeric scale that rates the acidity or alkalinity of a solution, based on the concentration of protons. Neutral solutions have a pH of 7.0, acidic solutions have a pH below 7.0, and alkaline solutions have a pH greater than 7.0. Acids like to donate protons (in the form of hydrogen ions) and bases like to accept protons.]

To Make Indicator Solution: 

1. Chop 1/4 of a head of purple cabbage (about 2 cups).
2. Place in blender with enough boiling water to cover.
3. Carefully pulse blender to very finely chop cabbage (cover lid with towel and hold).
4. Let steep for about 10 minutes.
5. Strain solution through wire mesh strainer to remove large particles.
6. Strain through coffee filter placed in wire mesh strainer to remove very fine particulates.
7. Pour in storage container and allow to settle and cool.
8. Solution may be stored in refrigerator up to one week.

The resulting solution will be about the color of diluted grape juice, the intensity and exact shade will vary depending on the amount, exact pH, and temperature of the water used. If the solution is very dark, so that you can't see through it at all, dilute with more water. This is about what it should look like, but a little lighter is okay, too:

Now, we are ready to experiment! 

Pour some of your indicator liquid into each of several small clear cups, glasses, or test tubes. Try to keep the amounts consistent.

Gather various household solutions for testing. The solutions should be clear and almost colorless for best results, and safe for kids to handle in small amounts. Suggestions for acidic solutions: distilled vinegar, lemon juice, clear carbonated beverage, apple juice, white grape juice, cream of tartar dissolved in water. Suggested alkaline solutions: baking soda, antacid tablets (Tums), washing soda, ammonia (demo only). As you can see, kid-friendly acidic solutions are much more readily available than basic ones. Ammonia must be handled carefully, and only by an adult (or mature teens with gloves and safety glasses in a well-ventilated area).

Test the solutions by pouring some of the desired test solution into one of the indicator solutions and observe the color change. Pinkish-purple is slightly acidic, pink is moderately acidic, and red is very acidic. Blue is slightly alkaline, green is moderately alkaline, and yellow is very alkaline. Yellow cannot be achieved with kid-friendly solutions, but an adult can do a demonstration using ammonia. It will appear light green at first, but over several minutes will become almost yellow. Be sure to keep one container with just the cabbage juice extract as your neutral control. Arrange your test containers in order of most acidic to most alkaline.

*Click on picture to see full-size version*
Left to right: distilled vinegar, apple juice, lemon juice, cream of tartar, Sprite,
neutral control, baking soda, Chlorox Clean-Up, washing soda, ammonia.

In the picture below you can see how the alkaline solutions continued to change color over time, with the washing powder and ammonia solutions become more yellow:

*Click on picture for full-size version*

For a library program, I would make up a large batch of the cabbage extract ahead of time, and just make one small batch as a demonstration. For the solutions to be tested, I would have the powders already dissolved in water (about 1 teaspoon/1 Cup), and have numbered cups (be sure you have a key) with them already set out at each place, but be sure to instruct them not to touch until told. Then distribute the cabbage juice.

Don't let them know what is magical about the cabbage juice ahead of time, just tell them to add the first solution (preferably once of the stronger acids or bases to get a dramatic change) and watch their reactions. Then explain how it works before testing the rest of the solutions, one at a time. Be sure to tell them NOT to mix solutions!

To dispose of your experiment, pour out the ammonia first, diluting with plenty of running water. Then dispose of all the others, pouring one at a time down the sink with the water running. For convenience, you may pool the smaller quantities of like solutions in one container to transfer to the sink.

You can also try making your own "litmus" paper by saturating filter paper or a coffee filter with the cabbage extract, allowing to dry, and cutting into strips. This works better with a more concentrated extract, so use less water in your preparation. Then either dip into test solution, or drip drops of test solution onto the strips. Try extracting anthocyanins from other colored fruits, vegetable, and/or flowers, and see what color changes they produce.

This could be a shorter program by itself, or combined with other "Kitchen Chemistry" experiments in a longer program and/or for older or more advanced groups. Display fiction books featuring mad-scientists, magic vegetables, or cabbage; as well as non-fiction books with simple at-home experiments and biographies of chemists for check-out.

P.S. Be Eleven by Rita Williams-Garcia

P.S. Be Eleven by Rita Williams-Garcia. 2013. Amistad. 288 pages. Ages 8-12. Coretta Scott King Award Winner

Summary
Delphine and her sisters return from their summer in Oakland visiting their estranged mother, Cecile, to find their home full of change and conflict. Their father has begun dating Miss Marva and is acting like a teenager, and their grandmother Big Ma definitely doesn't approve. Uncle Darnell returns from Vietnam, but has changed and sleeps all the time, instead of finding a job. Big Ma is still upset that Louis sent the girls to visit their mother, and blames her for any of their perceived indiscretions

Delphine and her sisters struggle with living under Big Ma's restrictive and outdated expectations, based on her growing up in the segregated South and living in fear of racially-motivated violence. Big Ma just doesn't understand that Brooklyn is different. Big Ma and Pa argue more and more, about Miss Marva and about Uncle Darnell, and things come to a head when Darnell steals the money the girls have been saving to go to the Jackson Five concert.

Throughout all this, Delphine struggles to make sense of everything, and is challenged by both Miss Marva and her new exchange teacher at school to re-examine some of her beliefs and behaviors. Delphine turns to corresponding with her mother, Cecile, who often offers some meaningful advice. Cecile ends each letter with "P.S. Be eleven.", to remind Delphine she is not an adult and does not have to be responsible for everyone else, and should take time to just be a kid.

My Thoughts
Another great story about the Gaither sisters. Like the others, this book is well-paced with wonderfully written characters and a very believable story of a family struggling with change and conflict, during a time of great change and conflict for the whole country, as well. Though still set during the Civil Rights movement, this story focuses more on the family's internal conflicts, as the father begins dating and suddenly re-marries, the uncle returns from Vietnam a different person, and Big Ma refuses to change with the times.

I liked seeing the relationship develop between Delphine and Cecile, with Cecile actually giving her some meaningful advice, though I did find it very ironic that Cecile kept telling Delphine to just enjoy being a child when it was her fault Delphine was put in the position of being responsible for helping raise her sisters to begin with. I also liked seeing how their stepmother proved to be a positive influence, easing into a mothering role and relieving Delphine of the burden of always being responsible for her sisters, and showing everyone that Vonetta could take on more responsibility, as well as advocating for the girls to have a little bit more freedom and make some of their own choices.

I did find it very hard to like Big Ma in this story; I found her to not only be completely close-minded, overly rigid, and heavy-handed, but borderline abusive. I was horrified when she smacked Delphine, hard, just because some white woman told her Delphine was rude. She didn't even bother to get the girls' side of the story. I get that it was out of fear for her safety, much like you or I might spank a child for running out in traffic and scaring us to death, because in the South it was dangerous for a black person to call attention to themselves or to cross a white person, no matter how trivial the offense. However, they weren't in the South and Big Ma had lived with them long enough to know things were different there. But I do think that was probably very realistic to the times, and helped set up some of the other conflict in this book and the next.

I would recommend this book to those who like historical fiction, persons who are interested in the civil rights era from a child's perspective, and anyone who just likes a well-written, thoughtful story about family, and particularly sisters. Fans of books by Jacqueline Woodson (Brown Girl Dreaming) or Christopher Paul Curtis (The Watson's Go To Birmingham) would likely enjoy this and other books by the same author.

Other Books By This Author
This is the second book in the Gaither girls series, preceded by One Crazy Summer and followed by Gone Crazy In Alabama (I hope there will be another!). Rita Williams-Garcia has also written several YA/Teen novels as well.

One Crazy Summer

One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia, 2010. Amistad, 224 pages. Ages 8-12. Coretta Scott King Award winner, Odell Award winner, Newbery Honor book, National Book Award finalist.

Summary 
In the turbulent summer of 1968, eleven-year old Delphine Gaither and her two younger sisters Vonetta and Fern are sent from Brooklyn, New York, to spend a month with their estranged mother in Oakland, California. They dream of Disneyland, movie stars, sight-seeing, going to the beach, and most of all, having a mother's love.

However, what they get is completely different. Their mother Cecile has absolutely no interest in being a mother, which is not surprising considering she abandoned them shortly after Fern's birth and they haven't seen her since. Cecile makes it clear she did not ask for them to come and doesn't want them around, and won't be bothered to take care of them, much less entertain them.

So they spend their days at the local center run by the Black Panthers, getting free breakfast, being indoctrinated with their beliefs, trying to figure out what to believe, and struggling to understand and cope with their mother's rejection and odd lifestyle.

My Thoughts 
I read this book out of order, after first reading and loving the third book in the series, Gone Crazy In Alabama, so I was already acquainted with the characters. Even so, I think the characters are so well-written and well-developed, that any reader would feel like they really know them. Each sister has her own distinct personality, and stays true to character throughout the story, from the responsible, quiet oldest sister Delphine; to the selfish, attention-seeking, sometimes shallow Vonetta; to the youngest, precocious Fern. As an oldest sister myself, I readily identified with Delphine, and so wanted to put the often bratty, thoughtless Vonetta in her place!

The often emotional story is well-written and well-paced, and will often leave the reader feeling angry or frustrated with the adults in the Gaither sisters' lives. I found myself angry and disgusted by Cecile's apparent complete disregard for her children, not only not looking after their basic needs such as food and safety, but repeatedly verbalizing that she didn't want them and even alluding to wishing she had gotten an abortion. She is very cold and disinterested, only opening up a little bit at the end and telling Delphine a little bit about her history. I also felt angry with their father for sending them to stay with someone who didn't want them, and obviously didn't have the capacity to care for their emotional or physical needs.

I would recommend this book to fans of Jacqueline Woodson's books such as Brown Girl Dreaming, those who enjoy historical fiction, those interested in the Civil Rights Era from a child's point of view, and those who appreciate stories about complex relationships and family dramas.

Other Books By This Author 
There are two other books in the Gaither sisters trilogy, P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy In Alabama, which were also Coretta Scott King Award-winners.

Rita Williams-Garcia has also written several books for teens and a picture book for preschoolers.