The Kitchen and the Lab: Two Parallel Universes for Making Things by Design

Two girls baking a new snack in their kitchen at home are surprised to discover that what they are doing is closely related to what their dad does at work in his lab. The ingredients and equipment may be much different, but the processes followed in the two venues—kitchen and lab—track well with one another:  first deciding on what qualities the final product—whether a snack or a material—needs to have, then gathering ingredients, mixing them together in the right quantities and sequence, processing them using heat or other treatments, checking their progress during the process, testing them at the end, and deciding if changes are needed before making another batch.