Saucy baked bean activities 7-11

Activities

Here is a set of activities provided to go along with the Online Field Trip about beans. The Intention is to inspire children to want to learn more about beans and how they get from the field to our plates. The activities may be done independently of each other – you may pick and choose whichever are the most appropriate or interesting for your purposes.

Ensure parental/guardian permission has been sought prior to the tasting of any foods and that you are aware of existing food allergies.


Introducing Beans

• Most children will have eaten baked beans, but have probably not given much thought to exactly what goes into the making of them. Begin by testing the children’s knowledge with a quick true or false quiz of fun baked bean facts. Mark the answers together and talk about what they have discovered. [Trueorfalse_7-11_Beans.pdf]

• Show the children a can of baked beans and ask them if they can name some of the ingredients. [beans, tomatoes, water, sugar, cornflour, vinegar, salt, spices, herbs]

• Tell the children that there are hundreds of different types of bean and that they are a very important food crop all over the world. If possible, show them a selection of different varieties and allow them to look closely at, describe and feel them. Explain that haricot beans are the variety mostly used in baked beans.


Dissecting Beans

• Prepare some beans by soaking them in water for several hours. The beans may be any dried variety, such as lima or broad beans. You will also need paper towels to put them on and magnifying glasses so that they can be examined closely.

• Tell the children that they are going to look inside the bean, but before opening the seeds ask them what they expect to see.

• Explain to the children that the bean seeds have an outer layer or seed coat which is now much softer after being soaked in water.

• Ask them to look for the small seed coat scar (hilum) and tell them that this is where the seed was attached to the plant.

• Get the children to remove the seed coat very carefully, and explain that it is there to protect the inner parts.

• Tell the children to split their seeds in half, using a thumbnail.

• Explain that the seed contains everything necessary to grow the early plant. Encourage them to use magnifying glasses to have a close look.

• The two halves are called cotyledons. These provide the food for the growing plant.

• At one end of the seed is the part that will grow above ground. The tip looks like tiny folded leaves which will form the first leaves on the plant. This is called the epicotyl.

• Just under the epicotyl is the hypocotyl. This will form the bean’s stem.

• At the lower part of the tiny plant embryo is the radical. This will develop into the root.

• In some beans the parts will be clearer than others, so it may be worth examining a few.

• Ask the children to draw a diagram of their bean and label it appropriately. [Beandiagram_Beans_5-11.pdf]


In Praise of Baked Beans

Small round nuggets of tomato-y goodness –
Beans are my favourite food.
I eat them with chips, I eat them on toast,
I know it seems strange but they are the most
Delicious food ever... well, that’s what I think.
If I can’t have my beans I kick up a stink.
I eat them with cornflakes and put them in tea;
They go well on sandwiches, with bacon and Brie.
In puddings and soups they add extra flavour,
On pizzas and pies they’re scrumptious to savour.
I made a bean jelly, which was quite ambitious;
It was tasty and wobbly and very nutritious.
I used fifty tins, and when I was done
A bean-tastic marvel stretched up to the sun.
It glistened and shone and a crowd came to see
My wondrous creation, as tall as a tree.
Not only are beans delightful to taste,
There’s another effect that should not go to waste.
They digest in the stomach and bumble and burble
Where food starts to break down and crumble and curdle.
My belly it rumbles and out comes a toot;
I can play several tunes, I sound like a flute!

• Read the poem together. Copies are available to download. [Bakedbeanpoem_7-11_Beans.pdf]

• Ask the children to:

• perform the poem
• choose their favourite line/part and explain why they chose it
• change some of the words.
• Point out the rhyming couplets and ask the children to invent a few rhyming couplets with a bean theme of their own. (Maybe about somebody who hates beans!)
• Ask them to explain what is meant by the last six lines. [Beans are well known for causing flatulence. There is a scientific explanation involving soluble fibre and molecules that are too large to be absorbed in the small intestine, but it’s probably better to acknowledge that it happens and that it is completely natural than to explain what happens.
  
  

Canned Foods

• Baked beans are one of the most popular canned foods available. Ask the children to think about why canned foods are popular and take some suggestions. The following reasons may be suggested:

• Food can be kept for long periods.
• No need for preservatives.
• Good for the environment because the tins can be recycled, and because of energy saved in
• Refrigeration or freezing.
• Huge array of products and choice.
• Some healthy choices – can be low sugar or low salt, tinned fruit and vegetables may count
• Towards ‘5 a day’.
• Affordable – often less expensive than fresh options

• Tell the children that one of the important advantages of canning is that food can be kept fresh for much longer. Explain that finding ways to preserve food has been very important to humans as fresh food is usually edible for only a short period of time. Talk about micro-organisms and bacteria, and explain how they cause food to rot and decay over a period of time. (If possible, show an example, such as a piece of mouldy bread or an old piece of fruit or vegetable.)

• Together, look at and discuss the short history of preserving and canning, using the information sheets. [Ashorthistoryofpreservation_7-11_Beans.pdf]
Consider the following information:

• Before the 18th century

Foods were salted, smoked, kept in ice, pickled and sun dried. Tell the children that these were some of the earliest ways that people used to preserve their food. Of course, all of these methods are still in use today. Ask the children to think of examples of foods preserved by using each of these processes.

• 18th century

In the 18th century the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte offered a cash prize to anyone who could find a new way to preserve foods to help his armies in far-away places. The winner was a man called Nicolas Appert (who has become known as ‘the Father of
Canning’). He discovered that after putting foods into sealed glass jars and heating them to very high temperatures, the food kept for much longer.

• 19th century

An English man called Peter Durand soon discovered that the process worked just as well with tinned iron canisters, which were lighter than jars and not as easily damaged while being transported on long journeys. The first canning factory was opened in England in 1813. Later in that century, a scientist called Louis Pasteur demonstrated that micro-organisms were the cause of food decay, and that the reason Appert’s idea worked was that the heat killed them. At this time tins were mainly used by the army and the navy, and to provide food for long journeys and exploration of the world.

• 20th century

By the 20th century, a new way of producing tins was needed. Up to this time they had been made by hand, which was very expensive. A machine was invented to stamp out metal for the tins and to solder (join together) the ends. This was much quicker and cheaper and so production became mechanised, as did many other industries at the time. Tinned food eventually lost its association with the military, and became widely used in homes. Tins can now be produced incredibly quickly. Ask the children to guess how many tins can be made per minute. [More than 1,500.]


Make Tins

• Look together at some of the different shapes, sizes and varieties of tin that are available.

• Ask the children if they know which metal is used to make tins. [steel or alluminium]

• Tell the children that steel is produced from iron ore. If possible, show them a piece of iron ore.

• Ask them where iron ore comes from. Tell them that it can be found all over the world and is mined from beneath the earth. [China, Australia and Brazil mine the largest amounts.] Tell them that the iron ore is heated to very high temperatures to produce molten metal, which is then cooled and sent to canning factories.

• Show the children this short video showing how tins are made: www.eathappyproject.com

• Make a delicious-looking baked bean lasagne such as the one at A short history of preservation