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EAT YOUR SCIENCE HOMEWORK by Ann McCallum

EAT YOUR SCIENCE HOMEWORK

Recipes for Inquiring Minds

by Ann McCallum ; illustrated by Leeza Hernandez

Pub Date: Aug. 5th, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-57091-298-6
Publisher: Charlesbridge

Science concepts are appetizingly presented with relevant recipes.

The math-teaching author of Eat Your Math Homework, also illustrated by Hernandez (2011), follows up with six edible demonstrations of scientific ideas from chemistry, forensic science, geology and astrophysics. The connection is sometimes straightforward (Sedimentary Pizza Lasagna does retain the layers of sedimentary rock) but sometimes not. Three Atomic Popcorn Balls will make a model water molecule, but what do you do with the other balls? You’d need more colors than the suggested two to make many other kinds of molecules. The fingerprints pressed into the edges of Loop, Whorl, and Arch Cookies will disappear in the cooking process. The science explanations aren’t clear, either. A lengthy description of invisible ink mentions the chemical change involved, but it also covers the differences between acids and bases and both the chemical and the physical reactions demonstrated by Invisible Ink Snack Pockets. All this is relevant, perhaps, but confusing to children who have never encountered any of this before. An indentation in stretchy space is a theoretical explanation for the gravity of everything, not just black holes. The recipes have problems, too. The sausage should be precooked before being placed in the Black Hole Swallow-Up Muffins, and the recipe for sugar cookies calls for rolling out the dough without pre-chilling it, making it a recipe for a mess.

To be used, with caution, by adult and child together.

(Nonfiction. 7-12)