Mr. Olsen’s 6th Grade Combines Science with Social Studies

Students in Mr. Olsen’s 6th grade Social Studies classes finished a three week experiment of mummifying apples.

During their Ancient Egypt unit, while studying mummification, the students had the opportunity to mummify their apples to try to replicate the process done by the Ancient Egyptians.  

Mr. Olsen and his classes knew that the apples most likely won’t need to get ready for their after-life; but they wanted to dry out their apples like the Egyptians did before wrapping bodies in linen. The students used a scientific methodology and developed hypotheses before combining baking-soda and salt to mimic the natron used in Ancient Egypt over 3,000 years ago. 

Reflections from students:

Victoria Dimarsico said “I thought it was fun and different because we got to try something new and mummify an apple. My favorite part was when we got to see it after a few weeks of sitting. It was better to mummify something non-living rather than do something living.  I've never done it before and it was fun to try something new!”

Chloe Brown said “I think it was interesting to mummify something like an apple. Something that has the ability to rot like a body. I thought it was a really cool experiment, and I am glad I had fun.”

Isabella Blanco said “It was interesting because you normally wouldn’t mummify an apple everyday.  I thought that it was a very fun experience!”

Bella Torres said “I think mummifying the apples was a good experiment to do, I think it helped me understand better about the steps of the mummification process. It was a really fun experiment to do! I like that Mr. Olsen wanted to show us the process better so he gave us something that was non-living since we could not experience the actual mummification process with an actual person. Even though it didn’t work completely, it began to work which is still a good thing so next year Mr.Olsen will be able to try a different way next year.”

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