gum

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Home : 2002 : November : 19

gum
By tia

i teach 6th, and here are 2 things i do with gum, both in science--

1. find the percentage of sugar in gum. (get bubble yum or some ridiculously sugary gum.) weigh the gum (with wrappers on), then pass out and have students
chew until flavor is gone (sugar=flavor). i try to get my students to suck any "spit" out of the gum, to not skew results--they put the gum back in the wrappers (since we weighed those to begin with!) you take the 2 weights, subtract, and put the difference over the original weight. example gum weighs 124 g. to begin with, after chewing it weighs 51. the difference is 73 g. 73

divided by 124 is....whatever it is! multiply by 100, or move the decimal point to the right 2x, and there's your percentage--it's about 60%! you could even compare different flavors and brands...

2. the other activity focuses on the scientific method--we take several brands of the same mint flavor and predict which one's flavor will last longest. we write up a report in sci method format--chew until no more taste--discuss with others who chewed different brands....blah blah blah. and then wrote up our results and came up with a conclusion.