Handouts are available below

Big Idea

Here’s a bellringer or ice breaker and takes between 5 and 15 minutes while getting 3 tasks done: gets people talking, gets people to formulate an argument, and gets people to consider bias. So, whether this is something you want to do on the 1st day after a long break or on the last day before a long break – when kids are getting wily – or any time in between, this ice breaker works great. And it’s just one simple question: “Is this a sandwich?”

First, some context: I recently spoke with the English Department Head at my school as to how she teaches bias because I’m trying to incorporate more liberal arts in my STEAM lessons. And, since teaching bias is something in the science curriculum, decided to speak to the English Department head. During our conversation, she told me about this ice breaker, which she does with her students and, recently, I did with mine. And, I’ve tried it with my Science 9 and Science 10 students and they all have a good debate.

CER Ice Breaker: Is this a Sandwich, Soup or Salad?

Imagine all foods are classified under 3 categories: sandwich, soup, or salad. Then, present students with different food items and get them to classify them. For example, I’ve shown students a picture of a cheeseburger and asked them, is this a sandwich, soup, or salad? For their answer, I get students to also practice using CER to craft an argument. Most students would argue a cheeseburger is a sandwich because a cheeseburger has two pieces of bread with a meat patty, cheese, and other fillers between those pieces of bread. By definition, students would say, a sandwich is just two pieces of bread with filling between them.

Then, I present something else like, for example, the following items found in our staff refrigerator: chips and salsa and I ask, “Is this a sandwich, soup, or salad?” Some people may argue it’s a salad because salsa is just a bunch of veggies mixed together and the chip can be the crouton. But, could it be considered a sandwich if I used the salsa as filling between two chips? Could salsa be considered a soup if it’s extra watery (and the chip, therefore, is just the crackers that go along with the soup? You can do this with other foods like pizza, lasagna, etc – the possibilities are limitless.

And, how do we tie it back to bias? Well, how you classify chips and salsa depends on what you’ve been exposed to. And, that’s part of what forms our biases. If we’ve always seen super wet, watery, pasty salsa, we might argue that chips and salsa is a soup. If we’ve always seen fresh, diced veggies tossed together to make a salsa, then we’d say that salsa is a salad.

And if we extrapolate this to science, there is bias in our experiments too. If we only ever sample a small population for our studies, then our results will always be biased towards that population. In fact, all experiments have bias in them – it just depends on how much is present and what its influence is. I get students to discuss bias in experimental design in a case study I give them. You can find this case study in my handouts.

Thanks for reading, and we’ll talk science again soon.

Resources

Handout(s): Ep42 Handout – Is This a Sandwich?

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