Kitchen Classroom 2021: Week 32

Welcome to week 32 of Kitchen Classroom, where America’s Test Kitchen Kids is sharing a weekly kid-tested and kid-approved recipe, hands-on experiment, or activity paired with a Learning Moment that brings learning to life in the kitchen.

In this week’s edition of Kitchen Classroom, we’re taking kids back to the Kitchen STEAM Lab. In our Regrow Your Vegetables activity, kids will use just water, sunlight, and scallion scraps to grow new scallion greens in about a week. In this week’s Learning Moment, kids will create a bar graph or line graph to chart one scallion’s growth over the course of the week. After all the growth (and observation!), kids can use their regrown scallion greens to top Nachos, a Corn, Tomato & Bacon Galette, or Stir-Fried Tofu with Green Beans.

Don’t forget to share what your family makes by tagging @testkitchenkids or using #ATKkids on Instagram, or by sending photos to kids@americastestkitchen.com. Visit the America’s Test Kitchen Kids website for more culinary content designed especially for kids, plus all of the Kitchen Classroom content in one easy-to-scan location. 

Here’s what’s cooking for the week of August 9th through 15th, 2021.

In this activity, kids will use scallion roots and whites to grow new scallion greens, using only water and sunlight. They can regrow a single scallion two times (after that, the plant won’t have enough nutrients left to continue regrowing with this method). They can also use this method to grow pungent, flavorful garlic greens (see the "Food For Thought" section at the bottom of the activity page for instructions).
[GET THE ACTIVITY]

What You’ll Need
Scallions
Water
Chef’s knife
Cutting board
2 tall drinking glasses or Mason jars

Learning Moment
Measurement & Data (Representing and Interpreting Data):
Young chefs will harvest their scallion greens once they’ve grown 5 to 7 inches above the white and light green parts, which takes about 1 week. That means they’ll get to see lots of growth in a short amount of time—scallions can grow up to 1 inch per day.

In step 2 of the activity, instead of placing all of the scallion bulbs into one glass, place a single bulb into its own separate glass. Then, proceed with the activity as written. Tell kids that they are going to create a graph to chart the growth of the single scallion over time. Explain to kids that graphs show you information as a visual image (like a picture). Ask kids: What information will this graph show us? They might say that it will show how long it takes the scallion to grow, how tall the scallion is every day, that it shows on which days there was a lot of scallion growth, and on which days there was less scallion growth.

Give kids the option to make a line graph (good for older kids) or a bar graph (better for younger kids) to measure how much their scallion grows each day. If kids are already familiar with making graphs, have them set up their graph on their own, including a graph title, and then explain the parts of it to you. Guide younger kids or those less familiar with graphs with the following instructions: 

• Give kids a sheet of graph paper or a sheet of paper. Have them make a long vertical line along the left side of the page (this will be the y axis), and a long horizontal line that connects to the vertical line along the bottom of the page (this will be the x axis). 
• Tell kids to label the y axis with “Scallion Height in Inches,” and mark it with evenly spaced marks labeled from 0 to 12.
• Have kids label the x axis with “Day of Growth” and mark it with evenly spaced marks labeled “Day 1,” Day 2,” and so on for 7 days.
• Then, have kids add  a graph title, such as “Scallion Growth Over 1 Week.” 

Make a prediction: Ask kids what they think the graph will show. Do they think the scallion will grow the same amount each day? Do they think it will grow a lot at the beginning of the week, and then slow down at the end of the week?

Before adding their single scallion to its glass on day 1, have kids use a ruler to measure its height in inches. Kids making a line graph should identify the corresponding number on the y axis, then make a dot at that height over the “Day 1” mark on the x axis. Kids making a bar graph should color a vertical bar starting at “Day 1” on the x axis and ending at the corresponding number on the y axis. Repeat this every day for the remaining 6 days. Kids making a line graph should use a ruler to connect each dot to the previous day’s.

Observe your results: At the end of the week, ask kids to interpret their graph. What day had the most growth (represented by the biggest jump in graph height from one day to the next)? What day had the least growth? Did they notice any patterns? Did anything surprise them? After analyzing their data, kids can use their regrown scallion greens to top Nachos, a Corn, Tomato & Bacon Galette, or Stir-Fried Tofu with Green Beans.

Catching up on Kitchen Classroom? Find previous weeks using the links below:

• Kitchen Classroom 2021
• Kitchen Classroom 2020