Students will explore surprising freezing results, summarize how ice cream is made, and develop focused, testable questions about how changing one ingredient amount affects texture or flavor. By the end of the phase, each student will have a clear research question and hypothesis recorded in their Ice Cream Scientist Research Notebook.

Students will design a clear, fair, and systematic plan to investigate how changing one ingredient amount affects the texture and flavor of homemade ice cream. They will match their method to their question, identify variables, create a step-by-step data collection plan, review background texts about how ice cream is made, and revise their investigation plan based on peer feedback before collecting data.

Students will systematically collect and document ice cream investigation data by carefully measuring ingredients, recording conditions, observing changes in matter during freezing, and reviewing their methods for accuracy before moving to analysis.

Students will interpret their ice cream investigation data by creating visual graphs, identifying patterns and anomalies, discussing multiple interpretations with peers, and connecting evidence back to their original research questions and hypotheses before drawing conclusions.

Students will draw evidence-based conclusions about how changing one ingredient affected their ice cream’s taste and texture, acknowledge limitations in their investigations, generate new research questions, and present their full investigation to an authentic audience during a class taste-testing event.