National Donut Day is a great day to celebrate a wonderful occasion with your students! Even if you get out of school before National Donut Day (first Friday of June), you can always use it as an excuse to do a lab that is more chill, learn about donuts, and even eat donuts! In this post, I just want to give you some highlights of this lesson that can be used in an hour class session, two smaller class sessions over the period of two days, or even a 90-minute block. It can be adjusted to fit your classroom. So, what exactly is National Donut Day? Let’s dive in!
What is National Donut Day?
National Donut Day occurs annually on the first Friday of June. National Donut Day originated with The Salvation Army during World War I. Volunteers, later known as “donut lassies” were sent to provide meals of comfort for troops. Donuts proved to be effective! Donut Day was established in 1983 to honor Salvation Army volunteers.
This lesson starts out with explaining what National Donut Day is, and in addition, discussing some fun facts about donuts. In addition to the resources in the lesson, these videos can be added as additional learning tools!
You do want to make sure you introduce National Donut Day to your students. It helps students to understand the purpose of this fun lab.
Cake vs. Yeast Donuts
There are two kinds of donuts. Some students may realize this, and some may not. The next part of this activity deals with a math activity that provides some insight into what portion of your class likes cake donuts and what portion of your class likes yeast donuts. This is always so much fun!
This activity goes over the differences between these two types of donuts, and then students get to pick a side! Students will create a graph to represent this data!
It’s fun to see their favorites (especially if they don’t know what yeast is!). I love a yeast donut!
Donut Day Yeast Lab
Now, for the BEST part!
It’s time for the science activity! In this activity, students will learn what yeast is and the characteristics of living organisms by exploring how yeast, sugar, and water react together.
For students that don’t realize what yeast is, this will blow their mind!
Students will work to answer the questions: “What characteristics make something “alive”?” and “How does yeast make donuts so fluffy and delicious?”.
Students will compare two different beakers and record their data, and in addition, will graph the data. Talk about a STEM lesson! This is perfect!
Once students gather their data, record, and graph it, they will fill out reflection questions that address the lab questions.
More About This Resource
This resource includes student lab sheets and teacher presentation with:
- national donut day facts
- cake vs. yeast donut math activity
- yeast lab and directions
- yeast lab data sheet
- reflection questions
- student coloring page
Teacher Preparation as well as Teacher Tips and Tricks are included!
If you have a short class period, this may need to be split into a 2-day activity, or just shorten the lab. Students will have so much fun with this activity and will learn a lot.
Don’t forget to bring donuts! Another option it to bring some donut sticks, the packaged ones. This is an easy “treat” to send out the door after the lab.
Help your students master science content!
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