Acorn Students Amazed by Chocolate!

Acorn second grade students loaded a Little Rock Tours charter bus on a rainy February 21 and traveled to Bentonville to learn about Chocolate at the Scott Family Amazeum Museum.

Prior to the trip, the students read the book Who Was Milton Hershey?  They created timelines related to the study of how chocolate has been used in the past.  Once considered a “food for the gods,” chocolate is now affordable for everyone.  Milton Hershey is credited for this after he began using milk in his chocolate.   His first Hershey kiss was produced in 1907.  Today Americans consume an average of 12 pounds of chocolate per person in a year.

In the Hershey Lab students saw a wall mural illustrating the history of chocolate and a map indicating where cocoa trees are grown to produce cocoa to make chocolate.   Students examined actual cacao pods with “beans” inside and were amazed and their size.  In the same manner as Milton Hershey, they experimented with different flavors that can be added to chocolate and produced their own candy.

Writing poems and stories, taste tests, creating posters, using technology, and reading other books about Hershey and the history of chocolate were paramount for this project.  The Amazed project was funded by a grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council.  Mena McDonald’s also supported the project and supplied breakfast on the charter bus for the students and their teachers.

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Jeri Pearson

Jeri is the News Director for Pulse Multi-Media and Editor of The Polk County Pulse. She has 10 years of experience in community focused journalism and has won multiple press association awards.

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