Curious chocolates – melting times investigation
Name ..................................................................................... Date: ...............................
Chocolate observation sheet
Look at all the different chocolates and note down on the table below any
observations you can make about the chocolates. Think about the shape, colour,
size, patterns, textures, etc. Also note down if it has a wrapper/no wrapper.
Drawing of the
chocolate
Observations
Think about colour, shape, size,
patterns and texture.
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Does it have
a wrapper?
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Curious chocolates – melting times investigation
The Problem
We need to design an investigation which will help
Charlie find out the order that his new milk, dark
and white ‘Chocolate Saucers’ will melt in. Then
we can tell him which customer to send which
‘Chocolate Saucer’ to.
Jonas lives very close-by, Horace is the next
nearest and Jessica lives far away.
Which of the chocolates do you think melts the quickest? Which melts slowest?
Melts the slowest
Melts the fastest
Plan a simple test to carry out to find this information.
.........................................................................................................................................
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How will you know which chocolate should be sent to which customer?
.........................................................................................................................................
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Record your results below
Melts the slowest
Melts the fastest
Charlie should send Jonas the ...................... chocolate, send Horace the ..................
chocolate and send Jessica the ..................... chocolate.
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Curious chocolates – melting times investigation
Teaching notes
The melting point of chocolate can be affected by many things including the quality
of the cocoa bean, how it was processed, how the chocolate was tempered and even
the particular ingredients used to produce it.
Dark Chocolate – Chocolate has health benefits. The darker it is, the healthier it is
and it will have a much more bitter taste to it. This is because dark chocolate
contains 60–70% cocoa and less of the sugars, milk products and other additives.
It also contains cocoa liquor and cocoa butter but, again, to a lesser degree than the
other chocolates
Milk Chocolate – Milk chocolate typically contains around 50% cocoa; much lower
than dark chocolate. The reason milk chocolate is sweeter is because of the other
ingredients added in such as full cream milk and sugar.
White Chocolate – White Chocolate really is not chocolate at all. It is a product of
cocoa butter, milk and sugar and contains very, very small amounts of cocoa solids
or none at all. It has a flavour very similar to condensed milk due to its high sugar
content.
So which chocolate should melt the fastest? White chocolate melts the fastest. The
main reason is due to the fact it has a high fat content and contains no cocoa. Fats
have a lower melting point than cocoa. In simple terms, the higher the cocoa
content, the slower the chocolate will melt. Hence dark chocolate melts the slowest
as it has the highest cocoa content.
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Curious chocolates – melting times investigation
Looking closely at chocolates
Place a variety of chocolates in the centre of a large piece of card/paper. Choose
chocolates with and without wrappers and of different shapes, sizes, brands, colours
etc.
Invite children to note down on the card/paper any observations they can make
about the chocolates i.e. shape, colour, size, wrappers/no wrappers, fillings, patterns,
textures, etc.
Sorting chocolates
Ask the children to come up with different ways of sorting the chocolates. Many of
the suggestions will come from the observations that they have made in the first
step, e.g. by colour, by shape, by filling etc.
Invite the children to discuss the criteria they have used. “Do all the chocolates fit
into 2 groups?” “Do they need more groups?” “Do some chocolates overlap into
more than 1 group?” Children could take photos of how they have sorted these,
draw pictures or simply write them down.
Starting the investigation
Resources:
 A variety of chocolate sweets e.g. some with wrappers, some without, dark,
milk or white chocolate, buttons, Maltesers, Smarties, etc. The idea is to
have a variety of shapes, fillings, colours, qualities of chocolate, sizes, etc.
for children to observe.
 Methods for recording: card, paper, video, cameras etc.
A new product
Explain that they will be testing the rates at which different types of chocolate melts
(milk, dark and white).
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Curious chocolates – melting times investigation
Method
1. Ask children to wash their hands.
2. Get children to “warm” their hands by rubbing them together
for 30 seconds.
3. Next, working in groups of 3, give each group a white
chocolate button, a milk chocolate button and a dark
chocolate button. Ask each child in a group to hold one of
the buttons in their hand.
4. Count down and get children to close their hands, but not so tightly as to crush
the chocolate!
5. Have a countdown on the board or stopwatch.
6. Time 60 seconds and ask children to open their hands. They should then observe
the state of their chocolate. If it has melted, that child can keep their hand open
or record that their chocolate melted first. Keep repeating the process until each
of the chocolates have melted and the order in which the buttons melted has
been established.
7. Evidence could be recorded by the TA/Class teacher taking photos or videos.
8. This could open up a class discussion on the results. “Which chocolate melted
first?” “Did everyone find the same?” “Why might we have different results?”
e.g. some hands are warmer than others, some children may open hands early to
have a look, etc.
Reporting conclusions
The children could report their findings by writing a simple letter, sending a video or
writing an email to Charlie Chock explaining which chocolates he should send where
and why. The children should hopefully come to the conclusion here that the
chocolate they found melted first would need to go to the nearest destination and
the one that melted last should go the furthest distance, because it would melt
slower.
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Curious chocolates – melting times investigation
Further investigations
There are opportunities here for further investigations on how quickly chocolate
melts. The ‘variables’ of shape, fillings, wrappers/no wrappers could provide scope
for questions to be investigated.
Follow-on activities could include how Charlie Chock could prevent his chocolates
from melting, being damaged, etc. and carrying out investigations looking at
protective packaging or insulation.
Cross-curricular link to literacy
Children could be challenged to create a new name and or description of a chosen
sweet. They could produce posters advertising the sweet or even create persuasive
descriptions for an advert or blurb on the packaging.
There is an opportunity to make cross-curricular links to literacy here by asking
children to conduct some research on the topic of chocolates before the
investigation. This could be through a homework project, by creating a nonchronological report on how chocolates are made
or compiling information about chocolates. This
will help children when predicting, as they will
have some previous knowledge on the subject.
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