What Simple Science Project Could A Eleven Year Old Child Do (with Adult Supervision)?

Title: How much energy to various foods have in them?

Hint, any foods chosen for this experiment need to be flammable.

Hypothesis: Guesses of how many calories are in each of the foods chosen

Materials:

One Bunsen burner (a metal ring stand strong enough to withstand high heat).

Various foods of interest. These need to be weighed or otherwise quantified (one tortilla, one crisp, etc.).

Thermometer
Lighter (propane gas)
Pyrex Beaker

Small square of foil with a pin stuck through it.

Methods: Each food item will be pierced on the pin (in the foil). Fill the beaker with 100 ml of water. Record initial temperature of water. Place the food item under the beaker and set alight using the lighter. When the fire burns out, record the final temperature of water.

The difference between the start and finish temperatures reflects the energy -- calories -- in each food item.

It takes 1 calorie to change the temperature of 1 ml (1g) of water by 1 degree C. Since the experiment is done with 100 ml of water, multiply the difference between start and end temperatures by 100, too.

Keep in mind that food "calories" as used by most people are actually kilocalories, so to convert the data to food calories, meaningful to the readers, divide the answer by 1000.

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