NittanyJen Posted January 3, 2012 Share Posted January 3, 2012 Okay, this was a fun experiment (and unlike many 'experiments' for kids, this one did not have a foregone conclusion, so it was an actual experiment, not just a demonstration) that involved actual math. We watched the video by "The Happy Scientist" Robert Krampf (love the guy!) about making butter (and the related video on butter science) and proceeded to make our own butter. DS 10 asked, "Do we make money or lose money by making our own butter? Well, the results were so delicious and the experiment so easy to do, that I was happy to repeat the experiment so that we could answer this question. We made the butter again, and I had a friend go to a couple of local grocery stores and snap pictures of prices of heavy cream, buttermilk, and butter, using brands she knows we typically purchase, at regular prices. (this way, I was not picking and choosing prices to skew the results one way or the other) and she mailed me the prices by photo. We made the butter, and carefully weighed and measured the products. DS10 did the math to see how we did. He had to do a LOT of conversions (prices in Quarts or Lb; results in cups, pints, grams, etc). We obtained, from one pint of heavy cream: 228g/1 liquid C buttermilk 216g/0.447lb butter In our local grocery /our brand pricing, this resulted in: Cost: $2.35 heavy cream Products: $0.42 buttermilk + $2.19 butter = $2.61 products Savings of $0.26 He is weighing for himself whether 26 cents is worth the cost of labor and/or quality difference (I say definitely worth the quality difference-- the fresh butter is definitely yummy, and I like having a small quantity of fresh buttermilk on hand without having to toss the rest!). It was fun :). Here is the video link: http://thehappyscientist.com/science-video/making-butter We spent $10 for a year's subscription to The Happy Scientist through HSBC, and it has been worth it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GingerPoppy Posted January 3, 2012 Share Posted January 3, 2012 Cool! We just watched a couple of his videos last night. We love him, too. We'll have to try the butter making! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acurtis75 Posted January 3, 2012 Share Posted January 3, 2012 Thanks for sharing! We are going to have to try this one out. I love the idea of incorporating the math/savings side of the experiment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tammyw Posted January 3, 2012 Share Posted January 3, 2012 Oh we are DEFINITELY doing this one. We'll have to figure out the cost when we use organic materials. Interesting project! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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