Gather a variety of raw vegetables and place them on the table in front of the child. Encourage the child to touch, smell and look closely at the vegetables. Ask questions like, ‘What colour is this carrot?’ or ‘How would you describe the colour of the broccoli?’. Encourage them to describe whether the colour is light or dark.

You might also like to take the opportunity to talk about the texture of the vegetables. For example, are they rough or smooth, bendy or rigid, hard or soft. Explain that cooking sometimes changes the texture of vegetables as well as the colour.

Explain that you will be cooking the vegetables to see how their colours change (along with texture if you completed Step 2 from the launchpad). In preparation, wash and cut the vegetables into similar-sized pieces. If the child is assisting you with this task, ensure they use a child-safe knife and are closely supervised. Make sure there are at least 3 pieces for each vegetable.

Write the words ‘raw’, ‘baked’ and ‘boiled’ on sticky notes and place them in a row on the bench. Ask the child to place a piece of each vegetable in the 3 different sections. Explain that raw means uncooked, so the pile of vegetables in that section will stay where they are. As for the other 2 piles, explain that some will be baked and others will be boiled.

Preheat the oven and boil a pot of water while explaining how these cooking methods differ. For safety reasons, this and any future steps involving hot surfaces, water and/or food should be exclusively undertaken by an adult.

Boil and bake the vegetables until they are fully cooked. Use this time to talk about what changes you might expect to see (e.g. ‘Which vegetables do you think will go lighter/darker?’ and ‘How do you think the different cooking methods will change the look or texture of the food?’).

Once cooked, carefully remove the vegetables and place them on plates or in bowls under their assigned sticky notes. Encourage the child to use their senses again to observe the colour differences. Ask questions such as, ‘How has the colour of the baked carrot changed compared to the boiled one?’ and ‘What changes do you see in the colour of the broccoli?’

To wrap up the activity, discuss the science behind the colour changes that were observed. Use these explanations to help guide you.

• Boiling: ‘When we boil vegetables like broccoli and carrots in water, the colours can get darker or duller because the heat breaks down the colours (pigments).’
• Baking: ‘When we bake vegetables, they usually turn brown on the outside. This happens because the dry heat causes a reaction that makes them brown and crispy.’