This week we received a letter from Mummy Bear with her recipe for yummy porridge. We read the ingredients list and worked in small groups to make the porridge. There was lots of measuring, mixing and tasting involved. We were VERY impressed with everyone who had a taste even if they thought they didn’t like porridge, and most children ate it all up!
The Three Bears Porridge Experiment
Why is baby bear’s bowl of porridge “just right” when it’s in the smallest bowl?
We set up an experiment to find out.
Big Bear’s bowl is too hot, the Middle-sized Bear’s bowl is too cold, and the Little Bear’s bowl is just right.
Have you ever thought about if this makes sense?
Should the larger bowl have the hottest porridge?
Should the middle-sized bowl have the coldest porridge?
Why does the smallest bowl have porridge that is just right?
We set up an experiment to test the results.
We measured the temperature of each bowl using a digital thermometer every five minutes. Our results showed that the the big bowl was the coldest and the middle-sized bowl was the hottest and the small bowl was warm…just right!
Why would Goldilocks have different results? Maybe the middle-sized bowl’s porridge was more spread out in the bowl – more surface area should cool the porridge faster. Maybe Mummy Bear was the only one to add milk to her porridge. This would cool down the porridge for sure. What other explanation can you think of?
