Ice Cream... Science?

Ice Cream...  Science?  You bet it is!!  Whether working with kindergarten students or eighth graders (or somewhere in between), this “Ice Cream in a Bag” activity was always a big hit with the kids in the after school program. 

Ingredients:

Milk - 1 cup (you can use cow’s milk, coconut milk, soy milk or any other milk of your choice)
Vanilla - 1/2 teaspoon (or choose other flavorings, such as peppermint, or hazelnut)

Sugar - 2 tablespoons (if using a sweetened flavoring, reduce the amount of sugar to 1 tbsp.)

Ice – about 2 cups
Rock Salt - 1/4 cup
1 - quart size Ziploc bag

1 - gallon size Ziploc bag

Directions

• First, pour the milk, sugar, and vanilla into the small bag (quart size), seal it, and shake it.
• Next, pour the ice and rock salt into the large bag (gallon size), seal and shake.

• Then, put the sealed small Ziploc bag into the large one.  Place it so that there is ice all around it, and seal it.  
•  Shake the bag until the mixture thickens… about 5-10 minutes

• Finally, grab a spoon and eat your science experiment (ice cream) right out of the bag!

But wait… Don’t forget the science part… How did it work? The simple explanation is that the salt lowered the freezing point of the ice.  So, by lowering the temperature of the ice, the milk mixture was able to freeze into ice cream.  For those of you who would like to dig a little deeper  into the science of it check out on Steve Spangler Science:
 https://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/homemade-ice-cream-sick-science

Enjoy!