DJ participated in his first science fair this week and it turned out to be way more fun and more educational than I could have imagined!  I selected three possible projects for DJ to choose from and he chose a study on taste. He also participated in the presentation of 3 of his friends’ projects.

DJ’s Project: Taste

Research: We began researching the subject by reading the book “The Five Senses” by Maria Ruis. Most of the book is a typical preschool book with big color pictures and one sentence per page. Then the last page has several paragraphs and a diagram of the tongue describing the science of taste, taste buds, saliva, the 4 flavors, that certain parts of the tongue taste only one flavor and without the sense of smell, it’s hard to taste anything.

The research was enlightening for me because I realized I had not yet talked to DJ about the five senses, so we backed up and discussed seeing, hearing, smelling, touching and tasting. DJ’s project then focused on taste and specifically identifying the 4 main flavors of sweet, salty, sour & bitter.

Preparation:  I then gave DJ a card with 12 pictures of food (and made sure we had them all in the kitchen). He gathered each food one at a time, marking them off with a dry erase marker as he went. We put a small sample of each into one of 12 mini cupcake liners. I also placed four of the foods, sugar, salt, lemon, cocoa powder, onto 4 different colored papers.

Study: First I had DJ taste sugar and told him it was sweet, then he tasted salt and identified it at salty, a lemon was confirmed to be sour (as you can see in the photo it was a Strong sour!) and finally he tasted cocoa powder that was meant to be bitter, but DJ decided he liked it so it couldn’t be bitter!  Hah.

Once the four main foods were matched by category, I had DJ select the remaining 8 at random and tell me whether he thought they were sweet, sour, salty or bitter. He naturally chose the foods in the order that he expected to like them. The green apple wasn’t as sour as I had hoped and he insisted the jolly rancher candies were salty (maybe they were a bit). He saved kale and radish for the end and had to be cajoled to even put the radish on his tongue and he did not swallow it. He definitely is not a fan of bitter!

Results: For the results and the display board, I printed out a sentence with blanks and pictures representing the 5 senses. DJ filled in the blanks, circled the body part used for taste and then he chose to number each of the body parts. I’m not sure why he wrote a 2 under the 4th picture. He said he had to because there wasn’t room for a 4. Huh?

Then he cut out the 12 pictures of foods, mounted them on the color we assigned to each flavor and pasted them in rows on the board. Finally, I printed a copy of the tongue diagram from his book and he glued sugar, cocoa powder and crushed lemon heads to the sections of the tongue that taste those flavors. He didn’t glue any salt because the entire tongue can taste that.

Presentation: DJ enjoyed presenting his work to his friends in his homeschool group. His favorite part was passing out 4 kinds of candy to all the kids representing the 4 flavors, Jolly Rancher Bites, Lemonheads, Cadbury Salted Caramel Chocolates and Ghirardelli Dark Chocolates.
A’s Project: Making A Battery

Next, another boy, who I’ll call A, presented his project on making a battery. His project was probably the most adventurous of the science fair and some of the details were over my head. He also discovered during the project that he probably didn’t have the right wire and therefore he wasn’t able to get the lightbulb to light. But he had some great pictures of himself putting the battery together. And he drew a really detailed picture of the process and in that drawing the lightbulb did light up!  He also handwrote his display in cursive which I definitely appreciated.

S’s Project: Ice Fishing

Next up was the oldest girl of the group, who I’ll call S. She did a display on ice fishing and exothermic reactions. And it quickly became a hands on presentation that the kids all got to participate in.

DJ was given a bowl of water, an ice cube and a string. He laid the string on the ice cube and then he was told to pour kosher salt over the string. After waiting a minute or so, he was able to pick up the ice with the string. S then explained that the salt initially causes the ice to melt a bit but then it refreezes around the string.

L’s Project: Milk Bubbles

The final presentation was done by L on the science of milk bubbles. This was another hands on project that the mom did not want inside her house and rightly so!  So we all moved out to the yard.

The kids were first each given a cup of water with a straw and told to blow bubbles in it. They were underwhelmed at first and the box of toys nearby started to steal the stage.

But once the kids were given milk in their cups, the magic of the giant bubbles caught their attention again. L then explained that the protein in the milk created strings that caused the large bubbles and since water doesn’t have protein, the resulting bubbles are less impressive.

With 4 presenters, 3 younger siblings and 3 parents in the audience, DJ’s first science fair was a huge success!  I’m so grateful for our little homeschool club.