Question A: How does the ingredient you experimented with affect the food's overall characteristics? Thanks to the fact that Canestrelli only uses the yolk of an egg, we can observe a few things about it. As mentioned in the recipe card, yolk helps to retain moisture, meaning that the cookie, on a macroscopic level, was observed as being very soft. Not only this, but it also retained lots of air pockets when flipped over, due to the aeration that yolk also causes. Yet, these air pockets and the softness made the cookies quite delicate and crumbly. This fragileness was due to the fact that, while yolk may want to retain moisture, it doesn't contain water like egg whites do. As such, the cookie may be soft, but it isn't soft enough to really want to stay together. On top of this, the fats within the yolk clump the dough together more, making it crumble into pieces. However, the overall texture and taste of the cookie was excellent, and definitely not fragile enough to break on the slightest touch.
Question D: In what way(s) are cooking and science similar and in what way(s) are they different? How are a cook and a food scientist similar or different? When it comes to these two subjects, they really are more similar than one might expect. The biggest piece here is that both can often involve trial and error. Take, for example, bread. If we were to make bread from complete scratch, without any instruction or advice on how to do so, this would probably take us a long time to get a decent taste, and even longer before someone else perfected the method. The same is true for science, in our creation of and fine tuning of experiments. Lots of people's food took multiple runs to get it correct, or to see which option was the best available. Furthermore, a cook and a scientist aren't much different. To address two obvious things, both probably enjoy what they do. Second, who doesn't love food? Skeletons, I suppose. But, when it comes to the people behind the experiments, both are trying to find a deeper understanding of what is going on with what they're doing - they want to know right from wrong, what works and what doesn't. If they didn't have a curiosity to repeat steps and swap others out, there wouldn't be any room for improvement.
Chemistry of Construction
Essential Questions: 1. How does the structure of matter on the atomic, molecular, microscopic and macroscopic levels determine its physical, chemical and biological properties with emphasis on their use in building construction? 2. How do the design of a building, selection of building materials, construction process and use of a building affect the overall sustainability of a building project and the user experience in the building?
Reflection Questions: 1. What new information did you learn through doing this project? I learned that concrete is different from cement. Cement is a standalone material, and while strong, it is very expensive. As such, concrete is cement plus a combination of other materials such as rocks, sand, or gravel, which helps to keep structural rigidity, whilst lowering cost. Not mentioned in the project was also why rebar is used as a common reinforcer. Not only is rebar cheap and strong, but it also expands and contracts at the same rate which cement does, meaning that there's no possibility of it interfering. 2. What new skills, dispositions, or lessons did you learn from this project? One of the major things I learned from this project was not to be overly ambitious. Initially my project was going to be an entirely different format, but a lack of planning and time management quickly threw the initial draft out the window. This resulted in a poster popping up practically overnight, with a few refinements being made to make it more presentable. While I'm displeased with myself for doing a poor job at outlining a plan, it'll give me a reference point on how to improve next time. 3. As I begin planning for next year’s fall semester and project work, what can I do to make the learning experience as engaging and meaningful as possible for those students? If this project is to be as impactful, if not more impactful for next year's students, I think they should be given some more foundation to work with (pun intended). As in, they need more context of how certain chemical bonds work in these materials. For instance, during this project I wasn't even sure how cement bonded together with other materials, such as water, to create a solid structure. Despite the cement puck unit, I feel like getting into the actual chemical reactions happening was only briefly touched on, and left some lasting confusion.