This was part of the lithosphere unit in our earth science posts. We tried several different rock cycle lessons before we finally found a rock cycle lesson that worked.
Our failed rock cycle lesson
In our CKE Earth and Space book (affiliate link) they’ve got a recipe for making rock cycle cookies. I was pretty excited, and got out all the stuff, started the lesson, and then I got to the step where you’re supposed to caramelize the sugar. I didn’t really know what that was, but I tried, and got brown slightly burned sugar lumps.
At this point for the safety of the kids I decided to kick them out of the house because I was starting to mutter under my breath at the pan. Pushing on and I decided to try adding the cream to make the caramel sauce. I ended up with lumpy cream that ended up burning in the pan.
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So I headed to pinterest to see what I had stashed away there and checked out my earth science ideas for kids post. I came up with several great ideas:
Out of all of those I thought the sugar cube rock cycle lesson looked most likely to achieve. Especially since I had large numbers of sugar cubes. There was a miscommunication on our sugar cube supply and Jeff bought 2 boxes after I’d bought 2 boxes, so we have 4 boxes of sugar cubes. FOUR boxes.
First we took our sugar cube and dropped water on it. We watched as the sugar cube dissolved carrying the solvents down stream and creating deposits that will make new rocks someday, this is how sedimentary rocks are created.
Then we melted our sugar cube, and this time because I learned from my mistakes and stirred it constantly. The kiddos were quite amazed at the sugar cube melting (it did leave a rather nasty black mark on the pan, but that’s slowly coming out). This represents the metamorphic changes a rock goes through.
I didn’t get a picture of it, but as it solidified and become hard that would show it cooling and becoming like an igneous rock. Over at All Things Beautiful (the link up at the top for Sugar Cube Rock cycle) she also has a fudge rock cycle that looked delicious, but given my bad luck with the other versions I didn’t want to try it right then.
Resources used for the Rock Cycle Unit
- Identifying rocks printable
- Edible Rock Cycle unit
- Crayon Rock Cycle unit
- Sugar cube rock cycle
- Play dough rock cycle
- Starburst Rock Cycle
I’m linking up over at All Things Beautiful for her science linky
Oh Ticia, you are so funny! Here’s a link to a Paula Deen video on how to caramelize sugar – https://www.foodnetwork.com/videos/caramelized-sugar-63250.html I don’t know if it will help, but it has nice soothing music playing in the background, if it doesn’t 🙂
Soothing music is always a plus.
This sounds like a frustrating lesson! At least the kids got something out of it!
I think the sugar cube thing would be interesting to do over a bunsen burner. Wonder if it would work? Or a campfire?
A bunsen burner would probably work great. I don’t know how well it would work over a campfire because I’d think it would be harder to control.
Someday I’m going to have a bunsen burner, I think it’d be the coolest thing to have an entire mad scientist collection in my house.
Seriously, you crack me up! Next time I’m muttering under my breath in the kitchen, I’ll have to think of it as a funny blog post by Ticia, and maybe I’ll laugh while in the situation 🙂 (I’ve had many a failed caramelizing of sugar experiences – and am very glad it washes out fairly easy by dissolving in water)
It just smells very bad….. But at least it’s better than apple cider that’s burned, that smell does not come out of the house for hours.
LOL! I’m always pleased to see a post on your blog about you in the kitchen. You crack me up!!
Someday, today will probably not be that day, all will go well. Once upon a time it did go well in the kitchen, I don’t know what changed exactly.
Loved this. Your kitchen science reminds me so much of how I do things. I want a bunsen burner too.
It would be so much fun!