News
Professor Sjakie and the chocolate factory
On 6 May the SSEB group joined the Expedition Next, kids science festival in Franeker (Friesland). With more than 300 scientists and more than 6,000 children, parents, grandparents and caregivers it was an unforgettable day where science was practiced, celebrated and discovered by young and old! We have seen children running with their Expedition Book, looking fascinated at experiments and working in full concentration on their own invention or assignment.
Our stand ‘professor Sjakie and the chocolate factory’ was very popular with long lines of children waiting to participate in our experiments. Children learned how they could train themselves to improve their ability to smell and test how well they could identify different types of odor with dr. Parvaneh Parvin, dr. Sanne Boesveldt, Ruben Mense and Bram Bolwerk.
Prof. Markus Stieger and Yulinn Wegman taught children about amylase in saliva breaking down starch. Children had to take a bite of chocolate custard and spit it out, after which they could see that the custard had become much more watery and thinner (like water). In another experiment, children could test how efficient they are in chewing. Prof. Ciarán Forde and Maurice Meijer showed children with two color bubble gum how well they were able to chew based on mixing of the two colors. Some children were to young to chew gum, so they could get their face painted as a butterfly or a tiger, researchers talents are endless!
In the last experiment children had to estimate how much they had eaten while being blindfolded. Zoë van der Heijden and dr. Marlou Lasschuijt found out that children generally overestimated the amount that they ate, seems like the stomach is bigger than the eyes after all.
It was a great day and who knows which province we will end up next year!