How to stop apples oxidizing - 20th August 2021

Today's experience was aimed to teach children how to stop apples from going brown the technical term (Oxidizing}, to do this experience we used an apple, six jars, water, salt, sugar, honey, vinegar, and lemon juice.

I started with explaining to the children that when a apple gets cut open it exposes the inside of the apple to oxygen, or in other words air and by exposing the inside of the apple to the oxygen the apple starts slowly getting brown and that is called oxidizing. I explained that there are ways you can stop the oxidizing process by placing the apple in certain liquids, and I have a few different liquids for us to explore the different methods on how to stop the apple from becoming brown and also learn what doesn't stop the apple from oxidizing.

I started by cutting the apple in slices and asked Michael, Ruby and Aarav to cut the slices in half. I asked the other children Hunter, Neveah, Pilar, and Jenayah to place the piece of apple in the empty jars. Hunter was able to follow the instructions and placed the apple in the jar as did Neveah and Pilar , Jenayah had a quick look at the activity but didn't show much interest in it.

The next part of the activity I asked the children to smell the different liquids to see if they could identify what it was, by using their senses, Michael smelt it and he said "It's lemon" Ruby, Pilar, and Aarav agreed. With the vinegar Michael smelt it and he said "Nice" but wasn't able to identify the ingredient neither did the other children.

I label the six jars one with lemon juice, one with just water, one with vinegar, another with water and sugar, an other water and salt and the last jar with water and Honey.

I asked the children to add water to all of the jars label with water, then I asked Michael to add the Honey in the water and mix it, Ruby added the salt, and Aarav added the sugar, we didn't add water to the vinegar or to the lemon juice and we kept two pieces of apple out exposed to the air to see what would happen.

A few minutes later I asked the children to look at the apple pieces and see if they could see any difference, but they couldn't see anything changing, so I asked "Which of the jars do you think will make the apple go brown first? " Michael responded with "The one with the salt" and Ruby said "The one with the water" Then I asked "which one do you think will stop the apple from going brown? and Michael answered "The vinegar" and Ruby says " The one with the Honey." I said "I guess we will have to wait and see , after lunch we will have a look to see if there is any changes."

After lunch I asked the children to have a look at the jars and they noticed that the apple standing on it's own was starting to go darker, but the one that was turning brown really quickly was the vinegar one, they noticed that the water and salt still looked the same so did the lemon juice, and the water and honey, but the jar with just water was starting to change so did the water and sugar.

We decided to keep it for next week and see how long will it take for the others to go brown or if they will stay the same.

Link to Pedagogical Documentation

EYLF Outcomes

Outcomes: 4: Children are confident and involved learners Elements: 4.1 Children develop dispositions for learning such as curiosity, cooperation, confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination and reflexivity. The Possums and the Joey's were curious and enthusiastic to participate in this learning activity, they were able to investigate, imagine and explore ideas, they were able to follow instructions and extend their own interests with enthusiasm, energy and concentration. They were able to contribute to the experiences by participating and having hands on experience.

Outcomes: 5: Children are effective communicators Elements: 5.1 Children interact verbally and non-verbally with others for a range of purposes. The possums were able to verbally communicate with the educator when asked questions and coming up with their own answers and thoughts.

Interpretation

Critical reflection: This activity was a planned activity to further extend children understandings about science, and it went really well. The children got involved and all had a turn at doing something, this was a hands on activity that allowed children to follow instructions, use their hand and eye coordination, communication skills, problem solving , sense of smell, exploring and investigating. All the children were encouraged to participate and were given the opportunity to choose to not participate and their choice was respected.Children were able to learn new words such as oxidizing and were taught the meaning of it in the concept of the apple being exposed to the oxygen to air. It was great to see how interested their were to participate in the activity. Follow up: Investigate with the children next week to see the changes to the apple.