At-home STEM Activities: Make-Your-Own-Stomach!
Have too many leftovers? No problem- use some of that food to do a science experiment!
What happens to those tasty dishes after you swallow them? Find out with this fun, easy experiment which you can do with items you probably have in your home.
Image by Anna from Eagle Rock, WI, USA
We are going to watch what happens to your food by building a see-though stomach.
MATERIALS (what you will need):
A few scoops of leftovers (ask your grownups first if you can take some in the name of science)
Ziplock bags that seal (you need 1 for each type of leftover)
Vinegar (I recommend white vinegar because it is see-through, but any vinegar will work)
Whatever else you need to make the experiment your own (ex. If you are timing something- grab a stopwatch or use a cellphone to time it)
Camera or cellphone to take before and after pictures
Paper and pencil to write down what happens
Paper towels or a hand towel for spills
Optional: A tray to hold everything so there is less clean up later
PROCEDURE (what to do):
1.First, decide how many foods you want to test. For example, I am testing turkey, cranberry sauce, and mashed potatoes (…mostly because I already ate the rest)
Because I am testing 3 foods, I need 3 zip lock bags (1 for each food)
I am filling the zip-lock bags about halfway with vinegar and... ta-da! I have made 3 see through stomachs.
-I snap a quick picture of what my food looks like before it enters my “stomach” and then I add each type of food into its own bag of vinegar
Before “entering the stomach”
Adding leftovers to the Vinegar
2. Now the rest of the experiment is up to you! What do you want to study and watch for? Are you curious which food will break down the fastest? (then time it!) Which ones will change color? (then watch it!) Which one will smell the worst? (then smell it!)
Note from a scientist: It is a smart idea to write down what you think will happen and then to write down what you OBSERVE happening (OBSERVATIONS are things you notice like what you see, smell, hear, or feel)
You can find out what happens when two foods are in one bag together, or when a drink is added, or if the stomach is gently squeezed during digestion. (If you do decide to gently smoosh the food in the bag, be very careful)
3. When you feel like your food is fully digested (mashed up as small as it will go), snap a picture.
Post before-and-after pictures to our social media page. You can also include your notes so we can gather all the DATA! (DATA= information)
You can tag us on twitter @msdiscoverycntr and use the hashtags: #MSDiscoveryCenter #leftoverscience #scienceathome
You can tag us on Instagram by typing: @MSDiscoveryCenter and use the hashtags #leftoverscience #scienceathome
You can tag us on Facebook by writing in your post: @McAuliffe Shepard Discovery Center and use the hashtags #MSDiscoveryCenter #leftoverscience #scienceathome
You can wash out the bags and redo this experiment as many times as you’d like. In my opinion, there's always room for dessert after Thanksgiving.
Keep reading to learn the science behind your RESULTS (what happened in your experiment).
EXPLANATION
The moment you put food in your mouth, your body becomes a digesting machine with only 1 purpose: to turn the nutrients in your food into energy.
Your body is going to break down that food into easy-to-use, microscopic molecules that will be absorbed and used throughout your body to make your body work the best that it can. In order to turn that big chunk of turkey into microscopic molecules, a lot needs to happen. Every part of your digestive system is designed to break that food into smaller and smaller pieces.
Image by Blausen.com staff (2014)
It starts in the mouth...surprise! Your mouth makes saliva (spit) which is acidic- and, as an acid, it breaks down food before you even start chewing it. Then the teeth come in and start mashing up the food with help from the saliva. (Did you know humans have evolved different types of teeth that are ideal for chewing different kinds of food? Use your tongue to feel your teeth- can you figure out which teeth are best for which foods?)
Image by Dustin Reeves
Muscles in your face and neck help you chew your meal into appetizing mashed-up balls of gunk and swallow them to send them down the food chute (AKA your esophagus, AKA AKA your throat). Once your muscles get your food to your stomach, you have reached what we recreated in our experiment: a bag full of acid! A stomach has a lining that holds the stomach acid inside but allows small molecules to be absorbed through the lining of the stomach and into the blood stream. These molecules travel around your body to the areas you need it (hint, hint: this is why if you eat foods with lots of good, healthy nutrients, your body will feel better and more energized).
Esophagus in red. Image by Olek Remesz
Stomach acid is a super strong acid. Think about how lemon juice can hurt if it gets in your eye or in a paper-cut. Lemon juice is another kind of acid, but stomach acid is much stronger! (Actually, if you’ve ever thrown-up and it hurt your throat, you have experienced the power of stomach acid). Because not many people keep stomach acid in their pantry- we used vinegar which is very acidic (like stomach acid) but much easier to find and safer to use. In your body, stomach acid sits in your stomach and, when food plops down into your stomach, the acid breaks it down and dissolves it into teeny-tiny pieces. Some of the molecules get absorbed into the stomach lining and become molecules used to make energy and make your body function, but not everything you eat gets absorbed in the stomach.
Stomach in red. Image by Olek Remesz
Believe it or not, the stomach is not the only part of the digestive system that tries to take something out of your food! The stomach is more like a plastic bag than you may think. It is storing the food until your body is ready to move the food into the next phase. Next, the food will travel to the intestines where the water and even more of the nutrients will be sucked out of the food and into the lining of the digestive tract. Then, everything your body could not make use of is expelled out of your body. Food becomes 2 things inside your body: energy and poop.
Small Intestine in red. Image by Olek Remesz
Thanks for joining us on this appetizing journey though the digestive system and trying our experiment which let us get a sneak-peek into the stomach of a well-fed Thanksgiving-lover!
Image by Zeetz Jones
I hope you all stay safe and healthy through this holiday break and visit us at The McAuliffe Shepard Discovery Center! We are currently open Friday, Saturdays, and Sundays 10:30 am-4:00pm and have planetarium shows each day. Come check us out!
