Thanksgiving Science

As we all get ready to feast on Thanksgiving, we thought it would be fun to share some other, exciting and science-y things you can do with food.  Here are some ways to turn your Thanksgiving into exploration and investigation.

Bending Turkey Bones
Materials:
turkey bones
two jars
vinegar

Directions:
1. Wash and dry your leftover turkey bones.
2. Fill one jar with vinegar and one jar with water.  Label the jars.
3. Put a bone in each jar.  Let them sit for one week.
4. Rinse off the bones and see which bones will now bend!

**The bones that were in vinegar bend because the calcium carbonate in the bones reacted with the vinegar. This experiment shows how bones need calcium to stay strong so they don’t break or bend easily.

Make Your Own Butter
Materials:
1 cup heavy whipping cream
container with a lid
salt (optional)

Directions: 
1. Pour the heavy whipping cream into the container with the lid.  The container should be no more than half full of whipping cream.  (Half liquid, half gas)
2.  Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake!  As you shake, you can periodically remove the lid and observe the changing states of matter as your liquid and and gas create a whipped solid: butter!
3.  When your butter is ready, you can refrigerate it.  It will become a bit more solid.
4. Add salt for a bit more flavor.

**Shaking cream makes butter by breaking down the fat globules, causing them to clump together and separate from the liquid.  When all the fat globules have separated, the remaining liquid is called buttermilk.

...Or Maybe Make Whipped Cream
Materials:
1 cup heavy whipping cream
bowl
hand mixer
sugar (optional)

Directions:
1. Pour the cream into the bowl.
2. Using the hand mixer, the cream until it forms stiff peaks.  (Stiff peaks are when you lift the mixer and the whipped cream peaks stay straight up and don't curl or flop over.)
3. Add a little sugar if you want sweet cream.

**Whipped cream is a colloid, which is a mixture where one substance is evenly distributed in another.  In this case, gas bubbles (air) have been mixed into liquid cream, creating a semi-solid foam. The whipping incorporates air into the cream, creating countless air bubbles.  The fat molecules in the cream form a network around the air bubbles, stabilizing them and preventing them from popping.  If you keep whipping cream past the whipped stage, the fat will separate and you get butter!