Science Class = Delicious!!

Our Science lesson today was about Flavors.  We didn't have any definitions or worksheets, but we did learn about herbs and spices, how we are able to discern different flavors, and a little about artificial flavors.  We pulled a sampling of herbs and spices out of my cupboard and sniffed them all, and tasted most.  I made the kids identify which were herbs and which were spices by definition.  I didn't know before reading the lesson what the difference was - I hope I'm not the only one that didn't know!  (answer at the end of the post)

Here are the herbs we looked at:

herbs

And the spices:

spices

(does that help you figure out the difference?)

The lesson just got better from there, because there was a feature article on chocolate and vanilla, the two most popular flavors around.  So we read that, then compared our imitation vanilla flavoring and real vanilla extract (we could smell and taste the difference)...

chocolate and vanilla

we wished we had time to go to Hershey today, and remembered some of the details from the countless times we've been through the Chocolate World ride (see? It WAS educational!!)...

and then we ate the special dark chocolate bar.  Oh yeah.

I like Science.  Especially Chemistry.  When it involves chocolate, anyway.

Oh yeah - herbs are plant leaves used for flavoring, and spices are flavorings from roots, stems, seed pods and other parts of the plant besides the leaves.  If you didn't know the answer, leave me a comment so I don't feel so alone.

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