Saturday, January 19, 2008

National Popcorn Day!

Is today folks! And today at our house we are having a HUGE Popcorn Pop Off Extravaganza!! We recently ordered 7 types of gourmet-ish popcorn (mainly because Alton Brown of Good Eats convinced Dan it was the best thing to do for popcorn!) and we've been saying that we need to do a taste test each time we try out a new kind.

When I found out that today was National Popcorn Day I knew today would be the pop off! We talked to the kids about how to test the popcorn types fairly. What things would need to be the same and what could change if we wanted only to find out how the popcorn measures up to the other types. The kids unanimously decided that the amount of kernels we start with must be the same along with the amount of butter and salt. That way the only thing different is the kernels we start with.

They decided that we'd measure the size once popped (by how much it fills the same bowl), taste, and color. Each type of popcorn will receive its own score between 1 and 4 and we'll do some data analysis to determine the winner. Should there be a tie, we will do a taste off between them and you must pick one as better than the rest. If there is still a tie after the taste off, well then there will be a tie (this isn't college football after all).

The kids are very excited. I'm off to make data charts and we will be sure to report back in later on after the official event. Can you tell these are children of an engineer and science teacher? Nah....

2 comments:

Alana - The Mommy said...

Can't wait for the results! What a great activity. I bet the kiddos loved it!

Lynn Hasty said...

Heather, I love the popcorn idea. We are huge popcorn fans here. (Well, all but DH.)

Your new header looks awesome! Glad to see the typewriter.

Lynn ~:-D