"Chocolate is a perfect food, as wholesome as it is delicious, a beneficent restorer of exhausted power..."—Baron Justus von Liebig, 19th-century chemist who helped establish the field of organic chemistry
Want to get learners thinking about chocolate beyond their trick or treat bags? Chicago’s Field Museum uses the power of chocolate to tempt learners into discovering the science of cacao, from tree seeds to taste buds and beyond.
In the Seed to Sweet online interactive from the Field Museum's Chocolate exhibit, you can try your hand at making (virtual) chocolate from scratch, starting from the manual harvesting of cacao seeds. Chocolate, the online version of the popular Chocolate Around the World travelling exhibit, takes learners on tour from the tropical rainforest to the candy factory. Along the way, learners explore the ecosystem and pollinators that cacao depends on; the great Mayan and Aztec civilizations that used cacao to venerate the gods and pay the bills; the technology that led to mass production of chocolate candy; the social factors that make chocolate a major economic crop today; and the medical research that is testing whether chocolate really has the power to prevent disease.
Chocolate Around the World is on exhibit at the Field Museum until January 2012, when it moves to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton/Burlington, Ontario, Canada.
Hungry for more chocolatey science? Check out howtosmile.org’s Green Travelers activity to trace how cacao spread from its origins in South America to Africa, where most of the world’s cacao now grows. Or search chocolate in the howtosmile.org collection for activities that use chocolate as an ingredient in tasty tests that teach about all kinds of science.