All About Fat Globules

St. Mary's recently had their annual science fair which all students in the school participate in. 

Admittedly, when the first round of instructions for the science fair came home, my initial thought was "really? 2nd grade is so young". But then I quickly learned that  Grades 2-3 can do demonstrations and the older students do experiments. 

At home,  we had recently made butter from whipping cream,  so Nora decided to do a demonstration on how to make butter and show the difference in quality of butter between light whipping cream and goat milk. Stuey's horsebackriding teacher has goats and goat milk, so Nora got the milk from her (she very much enjoyed petting the goats!)

At the last step of the project, Nora laid out her board, and I helped her tape everything on in the right place. She was quite pleased with how it all turned out and wanted us to transport it very carefully to school for the big presentation day.  Her demonstration took 3rd place in the demonstration category and she was so excited that she was telling random strangers this in the grocery store! Gotta love the science fair enthusiasm, at least! 

It was interesting looking at the final projects, because you could tell which students had parents who helped some, who had parents who maybe helped too much as well as who had parents who most likely didn't help at all (or very little). Next year I'd love to help some of the students who didn't have any home help with their projects so they can really have fun with it and get a lot out of the process. 

Even at the second grade level, it was neat to see the scientific discovery wheels thinking. 

And Nora learned what the word "fat globule" means! 

Zoya

The cute source of the goat milk at the Fairgrounds. 

Putting a marble in the jar to facilitate the butter making process. 

After 1 hour of shaking the Nalgene bottle, the goat milk was put into the blender to get the final product. 

Cow milk butter on left, goat milk on right. 

Buttermilk by-product on far right. Yummy for pancakes the next day!

3rd place in the demonstration category. The final product presentation board ready for the big day!