Energy to Burn

Investigate the amount of energy stored in various foods! Discover what your food is doing for you? Build your own calorimeter, measure the energy released from food and discover how the energy in food is transferred to organisms.  

This Accelerate level kit includes a full-color student workbook and a detailed teacher guide, with step-by-step instructions for both hands-on and reading-based activities designed to engage students in the energy stored in food.

Both teacher and student will be able to open the box and start within minutes, and the kit will provide over 10 hours of engaging learning.

In this kit, the student will engage in these hands-on learning experiences:

1. Burn different foods and measure the energy released.
2. Learn about calorimeters used to measure the release of energy.
3. Use math to calculate the calories released in different foods.
4. Learn how energy is stored in food and transferred to organisms.
5. Revisit the calorimeter experiment with new food items.

Use the Energy to Burn kit to answer questions such as:

• How is energy stored in food?
• How do organisms metabolize energy from food?
• What nutrients do organisms need to survive?

Your student is ready for this kit when:

• They have an understanding of energy and stored energy.
• They are interested in how organisms process food for energy.

Our Energy to Burn curriculum kit is a part of the Science Unlocked Accelerate series and is recommended for grades 3-7.

Interested in learning more? Check out our Student Workbook Sample and Teacher Guide Sample!

The following are Science Unlocked kits we suggest your student has completed prior to doing this kit: 

• Hot and Cold
• Squishy Science

• This kit contains foods that were made in facilities that also process peanuts.

Items included in the kit:

• 1 Almonds Pack
• 3 Aluminum Foil Sheet
• 1 Pie Plate
• 1 Beaker
• 2 Corks
• 2 Foam Cups
• 1 Foam Cup Lid
• 5 Marbles
• 1 Marshmallows Pack
• 1 Matches pack
• 1 Plastic Graduated Cup
• 1 Stirring Rod
• 1 Steel Pins Pack
• 1 Thermometer
• 1 Wire Stand

Other items needed:

• Assorted food items
• Hot pad or dishcloth (optional)
• Knife
• Spoon
• Stopwatch
• Way to boil water
• Water

• Learning outcome: Explore the changes involved in storing and releasing energy from food. Build a calorimeter and experiment with your food!
• NGSS science standards alignment
• MS-LS1-7: Develop a model to describe how food is rearranged through chemical reactions forming new molecules that support growth and/or release energy as this matter moves through an organism.
• MS-PS1-1: Develop models to describe the atomic composition of simple molecules and extended structures.
• MS-PS1-6: Undertake a design project to construct, test, and modify a device that either releases or absorbs thermal energy by chemical processes.