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Oklahoma Agriculture in the Classroom

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Food & Fun Recipes

Ice Cream Soil Profile

Ingredients
  • clear plastic cups
  • chocolate chip cookies
  • chocolate chip ice cream
  • chocolate ice cream
  • ice cream toppings (chopped nuts, chocolate syrup, etc.)
  • spoons and napkins
Instruction
  1. Place a whole cookie in the bottom of the cup to represent parent material.
  2. Add a scoop of chocolate chip ice cream to represent the subsoil.
  3. Add a scoop of chocolate ice cream to represent the topsoil.
  4. Add toppings to represent organic material and plants/animals that live in and on the soil.

Less sweet alternative: Edible Soil Profile

What does freezing do to foods?

Most foods are made from living or once-living material and all such material is made of cells. Water is one of the few substances that expands on freezing, so if you put something made of cells into a freezer, the water inside them turns to ice and expands, rupturing the cells and damaging other structures. Slow freezing gives large ice crystals time to form. For ice cream, commercial freezing is done rapidly to prevent large ice crystals from forming. Constant churning is also used, as in homemade ice cream and the ice cream made in this activity. This breaks up larger ice crystals as they form. When melted ice cream is put in the freezer, it freezes slowly, allowing large ice crystals to grow and making the ice cream unpleasantly crunchy.