It is an honor to be cooking in chemistry

Stomachs growl as students enter the chemistry classroom filled with the tasty aroma of freshly-made waffles. They see burning waffle irons and think to themselves, “I am ready; I’ve been looking forward to this all year!”

Honors Chemistry students have an annual waffle party the Friday before winter break to combine everything they’ve learned with an exciting hands-on activity of the best kind of chemistry: kitchen chemistry.

Despite the aspect of purely relaxing and enjoying the final day of school before break, there was still an educational purpose to the celebration.

“You had to use a recipe in order to figure out how much of each reactant was required to produce the desired product, which was a waffle,” said Dr. Deborah Yager, Honors Chemistry teacher.

Students had the choice to either bring in their own batter for the waffles, or to make the batter in class, but during the process of making the waffles, they experience and observed many of the scientific steps they’ve already learned about during the year.

By mixing all the eggs, flour, milk, oil, and other ingredients that vary in texture, students have created a single homogenous mixture with a single phase. With that mixture, students add portions of it to a heated waffle iron to start off a chemical reaction.

The heat from the iron cooks the the raw ingredients of the batter by changing the chemical properties of the thick, runny liquid, to a soft, fluffy solid.

Not only were students able to see chemistry happen through common means, but they were also able to enjoy their last day of school for the year with delicious waffles.