EdNC. Essential education news. Important stories. Your voice.

Search ednc.org

Cup or cone? A science lesson for the taste buds

Share this story

Our republishing policy

EdNC is a nonprofit, online, daily, independent newspaper. All of EdNC’s content is open source and free to republish. Please use the following guidelines when republishing our content.
  • Our content must be republished in full. If your organization uses a paywall, the content must be provided in full for free.
  • Credit our team by including both the author name and EdNC.org in the byline. Example: Alex Granados, EdNC.org.
  • If republishing the story online, please provide a link to EdNC.org or a link to the original article in either the byline or credit line.
  • The original headline of the article must be used. Allowable edits to the content of the piece include changes to meet your publication’s style guide and references to dates (i.e. this week changed to last week). Other edits must be approved by emailing Hannah Vinueza McClellan at [email protected].
  • Photos and other multimedia elements (audio, video, etc.) may not be republished without prior permission. Please email Hannah Vinueza McClellan at [email protected] if you are interested in sharing a multimedia element.
  • If you republish a story, please let us know by emailing Hannah Vinueza McClellan at [email protected].
Please email Hannah Vinueza McClellan at [email protected] if you have any questions. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Canonical tag

Please include the following canonical tag in the <head> of the republished story.

<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.ednc.org/cup-or-cone-a-science-lesson-for-the-taste-buds/">

HTML content

This includes the title, byline, content, and tracking pixel required for republishing this story.

Copy & paste HTML
This story is tagged:
girl
A young participant checks to see if her ice cream is ready at a Cumberland County Public Library event. Yasmin Bendaas/Education NC

“Number two is goat’s milk,” said Caitlin Ostberg, youth services manager at Cumberland County Headquarters Library.

The children in the room all squealed. 

They had just taste-tested four different types of ice cream as part of a demonstration to show that ice cream can be made out of more than cow’s milk. Option 1 was made with cashew milk, option 3—cookies and cream—was made with cow’s milk, and option 4 was made with coconut milk. Option 2, goat’s milk, was not a fan favorite.

But the children were not at the library just to taste ice cream. They were there to learn how to make their own. The “DIY Ice Cream!” event on Wednesday in Fayetteville was part of April’s North Carolina Science Festival, which featured 676 science events across the state.

“Being able to do this at the library, it allows us to let kids see the fun side of science and also to apply it to their daily lives as another form of literacy,” Ostberg said. “Parents like that their kids get exposed to other ideas, and the kids learn that science and STEM activities are really fun.”

Caitlin Ostberg helps guide parents and their children through the ice cream making process. Yasmin Bendaas/EducationNC

Ostberg and and youth services associate Jared White walked children (with the help of their parents) through the full recipe and process of making their own ice cream:

1. Milk

pouring milk
A family starts with step one in the ice cream making process: milk poured into a ziploc bag. Yasmin Bendaas/EducationNC 

2. Vanilla

girl making ice cream
A girl adds vanilla to her do-it-yourself ice cream creation. Yasmin Bendaas/EducationNC

3. Sugar

girl making ice cream
A participant at the Cumberland County Public Library event adds sugar to her ice cream recipe. Yasmin Bendaas/EducationNC

4. Place sealed ziploc bag into a bigger bag of salt and ice. “It helps make the ice cream colder, faster,” Ostberg said of adding salt to the ice pack.

A girl prepares salt for her ice pack at the DIY ice cream event. Yasmin Bendaas/EducationNC

5. Shake for about five minutes. “It’ll be like a milkshake,” said White regarding the consistency of the ice cream when ready.

A group of girls shake their ice cream bags to help their recipes get a milkshake consistency. Yasmin Bendaas/EducationNC

6. Taste time!

A boy offers his little sister a taste of the ice cream he made at a Cumberland County Public Library event. Yasmin Bendaas/EducationNC