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Grade(s): 7-8
Introduction: Vitamin C is a colorless crystalline water-soluble vitamin found in citrus fruits and green vegetables. It is made from glucose by organisms. It is required for maintaining healthy connective tissue and is readily destroyed by heat and light. It is also called ascorbic acid. Scurvy is perhaps the oldest known deficiency disease. However, its specific relationship to ascorbic acid was not recognized until the 20th century. It generally occurs between six and 18 months of age, but can start much earlier in premature babies or those born of mothers who lacked nutritious food during their later stages of pregnancies.
Scurvy is caused by lack of Vitamin C or ascorbic acid. Inadequate intake of fresh fruits and vegetables can lead to this condition. The disease is likely to attack the rich as well as the poor, because it arises in the system not from an insufficient diet quantitatively, but from a diet lacking in organic mineral salts so essential to health and vitality.
Learner Objective(s):
- The student will be able to list vitamins found in a variety of foods consumed daily.
- The student will be able to discuss the food sources rich in Vitamin C and the body parts affected by it.
- The student will be able to research how scurvy became prevalent when sailors spent months at sea throughout the early centuries.
- The student will be able to test for the presence of Vitamin C in certain foods.
Florida Sunshine Standards: Math: MA.A.1.3.1; Science: SC.H.1.3.6; Health: HE.A.1.3.10
Competency Based Curriculum: Health: M/J 1-II.2.A, M/J VII-2.B
Materials:
Cornstarch
Water
Iodine
Vitamin C Tablet
Pot
Stirrer
Medicine Dropper
Hot Plate
Teaspoon
Tablespoon
3 Cups
Activity Procedure(s):
- Pour half of teaspoon of cornstarch into the pot.
- Pour a cup of water into the pot.
- Heat and stir the pot of water and cornstarch solution until all the cornstarch is dissolved in the water. After heating, let everything cool.
- Pour two teaspoons of the solution and one cup of water into one of the cups. Using the medicine dropper, add four drops of iodine into the solution. Your test solution is now done.
- As an example, fill the second cup with water and drop the Vitamin C tablet into the cup so that the tablet dissolves in water.
- Pour two tablespoons of the test solution from step 4 into the third cup.
- Using the medicine dropper, add one drop of the Vitamin C solution into the test solution and stir. Continue adding more drops until a change is noticed.
- Do not eat or use any of the material after it has been used in this activity. Iodine is poisonous.
- Observe the color of the test solution once the Vitamin C solution is added.
- The test solution you have made reacts quickly to the presence of Vitamin C. Only a few drops react visibly with the test solution.
Student Assessment:
Allow students to answer critical thinking skills questions assigned by the teacher.
- Why do we group foods according to the predominant vitamins in each food?
- How do antioxidant vitamins protect your body from disease?
Allow students to share their observations gathered during the Activity.
Activity Extension(s):
- Allow the students to bring in a variety of foods or pictures of foods that they like to eat and have them discuss whether or not each item is vitamin-rich and if it has health benefits (Health/Nutrition).
- Encourage students to read A Simple Experiment on Scurvy. (http://www.people.virginia.edu/~rjh9u/scurvy1.html)
Discuss what actually occurred onboard the HMS Salisbury in 1747 (Social Studies).
- Explain why certain vitamins are administered daily in milligram (mg.) quantities whereas other similar vitamins are administered in gram (g.) quantities. Is there a major difference in quantity? (Math).
Home Learning Activity:
The students will produce shopping lists for the ingredients needed to prepare a vitamin-rich meal. Students will have to identify the predominant vitamin for each food on their list.
Vocabulary: Scurvy, ascorbic acid, Vitamin C
References/Related Links:
http://www.freshstarts.com/VitaminsAreElementary/
http://www.healthlibrary.com/reading/nature/chap50.htm
http://library.thinkquest.org
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