It's 4 am and my brain is excited. If I can get this out, maybe I can get back to sleep.
My students have a food lab today - dirt cups.
Here's the simple recipe from Kraft.com:
1 pkg. (3.9 oz.) Chocolate Instant Pudding
2 cups cold milk
1 tub (8 oz.) Whipped Topping, thawed
15 Oreo Cookies, finely crushed (about 1-1/4 cups), divided
10 Gummy worms
Beat pudding mix and milk in large bowl with whisk 2 min. Let stand 5 min. Stir in COOL WHIP and 1/2 cup cookie crumbs. Spoon into 10 paper or plastic cups; top with remaining cookie crumbs. Refrigerate 1 hour. Top with fruit snacks just before serving.
This can go back to a taste test we had a few weeks ago where we tried several flavors of Oreos. I still cannot wrap my head around flavored Oreos. Anyway, we could question what flavors would be good or bad with this recipe and why. Or recreate the recipe with a new flavor of Oreo or pudding. Would it still be considered "dirt" and why/not? That's some higher order thinking right there!
You know, there are a lot of connections to be made!
Science: Chemical and physical changes. Milk and pudding are the chemical change. The crushed Oreos are the physical change. And that one could also go back to digestion and the physical breakdown of foods through chewing.
Social studies: we recently talked about how more people are growing their own fruits and vegetables and the impact it can make (organic vs non, economical, etc). Dirt cups can represent gardening! We can also go back to talking about the parts of the plant and which types of edible vegetables are found in the soil (roots and tubers). This would also be a great way the students can build an edible plant model that represents the parts of the plants we eat.
One other connection - agriculture and back to gardening. I taught a lesson to underprivileged youth through an internship with the local county extension agency and 4-H program about gardening. The lesson was about how to successfully garden and what makes a great soil. We built an edible soil compound that represented all the different parts of a healthy soil that would foster plant growth.
I can't remember the full list of ingredients but these are some of the items I remember using and what they represented.
Pretzels - sticks
Gummy worms - worms
Brown sugar - sand
Peanut butter - dead and decaying organisms *omit for allergies
Here are a few more resources. The only thing that makes the difference is that the following links talk about the layers of soil on a larger scale - which is more of a geology or earth science lesson. Our gardening soil is mixed up to encourage growth and contains other added materials.
List of questions posed to students:
Draw and label the layers of soil (this involves student research).
Crushing the cookies can be compared to what part of digestion?
What part of the recipe involves physical change?
What part involves chemical change?
What parts of the plant do we eat that is found under the soil? (give the two plant categories and an example from each)
What pudding/oreo flavors would be good to use?
Would it still be considered "dirt"? Why or why not?
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