Colorizing rice – hygroscopic qualities

Colorizing rice – experimenting with hygroscopic qualities

Type of resource: Website (blog); You Tube

Web address

https://mamineskarby.pl/kolorowy-ryz-wykonanie-i-zabawy/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNSGxBTj14A

Language: English

Description

Observing and explaining the hygroscopic qualities of rice (the process of absorbing water); playing with natural plant’s pigments to prepare colorful rice.

Scientific concept introduced

Food pigments, pigmentation (colorizing food), absorption, the phenomenon of hygroscopy, hygroscopic substances/ qualities, rice, measuring, comparing.

Creative and critical thinking

Creative thinking: Divergent thinking – creating composition with colorful rice, imagination

Mathematical reasoning

Measuring the level of water, measuring the amount of rice, comparing the volume of water on different stages of experiment

Scientific thinking

Formulating problems, predicting, verifying hypothesis, observing, drawing conclusions, explaining the chemical reaction

Learning how to learn

Motivation and engagement, self-evaluation of one’s own learning

Additional

Teamwork – cooperating with others, sharing responsibility for a task; Fine motor skills; Language communication.

Colorizing rice – experimenting with hygroscopic qualities

Overall aims

– Extending children’s knowledge of growing and qualities of rice
– Developing the ability to observe the chemical reaction
– Introducing the concept of „absorption” and „pigmentation”
– Developing the abilities to measure and compare the amounts (volume) of water
– Supporting the abilities to draw conclusions
– Developing fine motor skills
– Developing creative imagination

Vocabulary – keywords should be understood

Food pigments, pigmentation (colorizing food), absorption, the phenomenon of hygroscopy, hygroscopic substances/ qualities, rice, measuring, comparing

Expected learning outcomes (operational aims)

The child will be able to:
– explain the process of absorbing water (absorption)
– explain the process of coloring food
– measure the level of water on different stages of the experiment
– experiment with rice – investigate the qualities of rice
– create different compositions from colorful rice

STEM skills – to which the learning unit is related to

CORE STEM SKILLS

Scientific thinking: formulating problems, predicting, verifying hypothesis, observing, drawing conclusions, explaining the chemical reaction
Mathematical thinking: measuring the level of water, measuring the amount of rice, comparing the volume of water on different stages of experiment
Creative thinking: divergent thinking – creating composition with colorful rice, imagination
Learning how to learn: motivation and engagement, self-evaluation of one’s own learning

ADDITIONAL SKILLS

Teamwork – cooperating with others, sharing responsibility for a task
Fine motor skills;
Language communication

Teaching methodologies/activity outline

1. Introduction
The teacher presents the globe or world maps, explains where the rice comes from. Questions:
Do you like rice?
What types of rice do you know? How do they look like – can you describe?
What are the qualities of rice – why is rice a valuable dish? What are the nutritional values of rice? (complex carbohydrates; potassium, iron, zinc – rice gives a lot of energy and microelements)
Presenting a movie about the process of growing rice.
Questions:
– What did you find out about the process of growing rice?
– What was the most surprising for you?
– Can we grow rice in our country? Why?

2. Building problem situation
The teacher presents seeds of rice to children – children investigate the qualities such as: the size, color, taste, scent. The they share the observations:
Research questions:
– What will happen to the rice if we add it to the water? zachowa się ryż w wodzie?
– Can rice have a different color than white?
– What else would you like to know about rice

3. Formulating hypotheses – the teacher writes down children’s ideas

4. Verifying hypotheses – conducting the experiment “Colorizing rice“:
– Children work in small teams – each team prepares 4 glasses (the number of glasses depends on the number of pigments prepared by a teacher)
– Children fill in the half of every glass with warm water and add food pigments. One glass should be left without any pigment (control glass only with water).
– Add 3 tablespoons of rice to every glass
– Mark the level of water on every glass and leave it for 1 hour.
– After 1 hour, check what happened with rice – does it change color or volume? Mark the volume of water on the glass
– Drain the rice – pour the drained water back to the glasses and observe the water levels.
– Leave the rice to dry – it might be left for the night or dried in an oven

5. Summarizing the activity and drawing conclusions
The rice absorbed the water together with a pigment and as a result it changed the color, The level of water was much lower. Such process is called „absorption”

6. Explanation for a teacher:
Rice is a highly hygroscopic substance which means it has the ability to absorb water. It can be easily colorized with food pigments.

7. Propozycje innych działań z dziećmi
Different artistic activities can be organized with colorful rice – children can draw with fingers on a tray filled with rice; they may create different geometrical shapes; they can walk bare feet on rice or make a footprint of their hands.
For the mist patient and resistant – the rice can be sorted according to colors.

Assessment of learning

What have you learned during this experiment? What else would like to know?
Which activity did you like the most?

Equipment and materials to be used in learning unit (tools, ingredients etc)

White rice, food pigments (or colorful blotting paper), glasses or jars, water, paper towels, strainer (kitchen sieve), black marker, world map or globe, educational movie about the process of growing rice.