The Science of Butter

Wednesday's science lesson led to some delicious results, plus gave the students further practice in conducting experiments. We are really working on seeing the importance of changing only one variable at a time.

I had prepared different jars for testing purposes. Some jars had cold cream, some had cream that had been left out for 12 hours at room temperature. Some had a marble, some didn't. Some had whole cream, and some had half-and-half.

We did a quick hands-up to tell our hypotheses - which would make butter faster? Most children thought cold over warm, marble over non-marble, half-and-half over cream. 

We partnered up, and - this was tricky - trying to shake the cream at the same speed as our partner - we tested our theories. 

I was surprised at the temperature variable results, but it is explained here (we watched this in class after the experiment):

After that, all that was left was to taste our results. The conclusion: Delicious!