How cool is your drink?
2
Manufacture of fizzy drinks
Most of the children in your class will drink popular fizzy soft drinks such as Coca Cola or Pepsi Cola. They are unlikely to know much about the way these drinks are manufactured or the scale on which they are manufactured. Both Coke and Pepsi are global products manufactured in different countries across the world and consumed by people in every country in the world. To meet the demands of such a huge market the manufacturing system is fast and continuous. There are three main stages.
1 Creating the packaging material (bottles, both glass and plastic, and cans).
2 Producing the drink (combining a concentrate with a liquid sweetener, adding local water and then carbon dioxide gas (to give the fizz).
3 Filling the bottles or cans.
If you want your class to experience manufacturing you could find out which of the drinks designed and made by the class is the most popular and ask the class to design a manufacturing system for that drink. This activity would link well to a school summer fete with members of the class producing drinks on the afternoon of the fete for immediate sale and consumption - a kind of prêt á boire.