Published: April 04, 2010
Students learn the science behind making ice cream from the California Science Teacher's Association Photo By Juanita Vasquez/Daily Titan Staff Writer
It’s cold. It’s sweet. It’s creamy. And that burst of vanilla mixed with the satisfying thought that the ice cream is your own creation is incredibly refreshing.
During The Science of Ice Cream, an event sponsored by the student chapter of the California Science Teachers Association (CTSA), students learned to make their own ice cream – with science.
Around 10 students, not all members of CSTA, gathered in a sixth-floor classroom in McCarthy Hall March 25 to create the creamy frozen treat.
“It’s a science experiment,” said Megan Tommerup, the faculty adviser to CSTA, as students poured ingredients into bags. “If it doesn’t work one way, then try it another!”
It seems that the highest quality ice cream has the fewest ingredients. Besides cream, ice cream has just a few essential ingredients, mainly: sugar, milk and vanilla.
After students placed the liquid ice cream mixture into small Ziploc bags, they were placed inside a larger bag filled with ice cubes and rock salt. Then came the 10 minutes in which they rocked, massaged, kneaded and rolled their ice-filled bag until the contents of the smaller bag solidified.
Christine Tirona, 28, said she heard about CSTA in one of Tommerup’s classes. Although she had never made ice cream before, but she had made butter with the special education students she works with in Garden Grove.
Tirona said she liked her ice cream, but “the process was really cold.”
A fact sheet provided by Tommerup explained the function salt plays in the making of ice cream. When salt comes into contact with ice, the freezing point of ice is lowered, creating and an environment in which the milk mixture can freeze at a temperature below the freezing point of water.
When the kneading was over and the frozen contents of the bags was poured onto plates, students decorated their ice cream with toppings, green cherries being the cause of some commotion, and indulged in their frozen creation.
Ruth Prendez, a child and adolescent studies major and co-president of CSTA, said that they had been