It’s been a few days since I started my science project, every day or so I give it a bit of mix through half of it at and then replenish my pet with another mixture of 1/2 cup each of flour and warm warm water. You really do need make sure you keep your pets fed.
For the first few days I had been using high-grade flour but then made the switch over to wholemeal and the creature has been thriving ever since. It is smelling pretty rank at the moment, kind of like stale baby’s vomit but seems to bubbling away so all is good.
Now you maybe wondering what it is I am up to. So I am going to tell you a little story. Way back in year 12 I had a habit of getting into trouble. Yes I was one of those horrible disengaged students biding my time wondering what it was I was doing at school. One particular afternoon a teacher had located a drink bottle that I had lost a couple of weeks previously. This bottle required a trip to the Deputy Principal’s office as the contents smelled like alcohol. Bringing alcohol to school is a bit of a no-no which meant I was in some serious trouble.
Except on this occasion I hadn’t actually bought alcohol to school however the teacher was correct in that there was booze in the bottle. How could this be? By leaving a bottle of apple juice in a classroom for a couple of weeks I had inadvertently made alcohol. The puffed out appearance of my drink bottle and the sound of gas being released when the teacher opened the bottle are all tell-tale signs of brewing which in this case was entirely accidental. No one in their right mind would want to drink the stuff and I was let off with a stern talking to about keeping an eye on my possessions.
As an almost-teacher I now realize that this would of been a great teachable moment on the topic of fermentation, the conversion of sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Humans have been using fermentation for thousands of years and it isn’t just alcohol that we produce but a whole range of food including bread, yoghurt and the korean wonder-food kimchi. Right now I’m fermenting something in my jar. I wonder what it is?
Teaching the Teacher 
I quite like practical hands on science that you can do at home. This is a great idea and it can be adapted easily. You could try fermenting different things to see which ones are the best. You could try apple juice with a little yeast, and put it in jars in different conditions to see which ones work best. For example, in the light, dark, in the fridge, ina warm place, with a little bit of salt added, with and without the lid on….. The possibilities are endless. Might try this as its half term next week and I have a 6 year old neice who loves science!
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Hi thanks for stopping by,
You are right fermentation has lots of possibilities for inquiry-based learning. After all it’s humanity’s oldest form of science. People have been fermenting since long before they thought the earth was flat.
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