Concentration of a Solution

Don’t you just love this picture?   I can almost taste the tartness that he is experiencing. Why would I have my child drink something that I knew would create such a silly face? He is learning about strength and concentrations of a solution.   I tried drawing pictures explaining how we can take a can of concentrated orange juice, add 3 cans of water and get a perfect ratio for orange juice.   But if we only used 1 1/2 cans of water with the same amount of concentrated orange juice then that would be too “strong” or too “concentrated”. His eyes were kind of glazing over after listening to me as I drew it all out for him. Yes, my eyes glaze over too from just looking at it. Well, I scrapped that piece of paper.   What better way to teach him about the strength and concentration of a solution than a hands-on activity?   Where he tastes and experiences the differences for himself? We got out some concentrated orange juice, several cups, a spoon, and a measuring cup and water. We measured and mixed up 3 different ratios of orange juice…Full strength, 3:2 water and orange juice, and 3:1 water and orange juice. My son loves sour and tangy foods but as you can see from the earlier picture, he thought the full strength orange juice concentrate was way too strong.   I was surprised that he still didn’t like the 3:2 ratio because he has eaten some really tangy candy before and love it.   He liked the regular 3:1 ratio of orange juice and decided that he would play around with mixing the other ratios together and adding more water to them to try to make them taste better. I love it when he wants to take an experiment and do more with it on his own. By tasting the different strengths of a concentration and experimenting with diluting the drinks, my son was able to build on the basic concepts we had discussed.   It really helped him to understand and learn what we were studying.  And when he learns with hands-on projects, he always remembers it so much better than if he just tried to memorize a definition or a list of facts.