CSA Pickup: Week of August 5, 2026 - Bell Pepper STEM Exploration
Updated: Aug 19
This week brought a few unexpected treats for our CSA pickup, purple onions, golden beets and bell peppers! Even though the pick‑up looks a lot like last week’s, the produce itself has shifted in tiny ways: color, texture, size, and patterns that show how midsummer growth is progressing. These little changes make for easy, kid‑friendly STEM observations as we unpack and cook.
The bell peppers were especially fun to explore. Cut one open and you suddenly have a natural little map to investigate, chambers, seeds, repeating shapes, and structures that are easy for kids to see and touch.
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What We Received This Week
Carrots
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Bell Peppers
Green Cabbage
Romaine Lettuce
Purple Onions
Tomatoes
Beets
Quick Produce Notes
Cauliflower and Broccoli: Cauliflower heads are denser and creamier in color; a good chance to compare how cauliflower’s branching differs from broccolis.
Bell Peppers: Their hollow centers and repeating chambers make them a fun vegetable for exploring plant structure, symmetry, and seed placement.
Purple Onions: Their deep purple color makes them a great starting point for noticing natural pigments and how color can change when plant tissues are cut or handled.
Simple STEM Exploration: Bell Pepper Seed Mapping
Bell peppers are a wonderful vegetable for practicing one of the simplest parts of STEM: Look closely. From the outside, a bell pepper doesn't tell us much about what's happening inside. Cut it open, though, and you'll find chambers, seeds, and repeating structures that give us a chance to talk about plant anatomy, symmetry, structure, and variation. It's a simple exploration that doesn't require a worksheet or special equipment. Just a pepper and a little curiosity.
What You Need
1–2 bell peppers (any color)
A Knife (A child-safe knife may be appropriate depending on your child's age and skill, or have an adult do the cutting.)
A cutting board
Optional: Paper, pencil, and coloring pencils or crayons
Steps
Slice the pepper crosswise through the middle to reveal the inside.
Look closely before removing anything.
Find the internal ribs, these are the structural supports that hold the seeds.
Find the chambers, these are separated by the ribs. Count the chambers. Do you see three? Four? Something different?
Gently remove the seeds and look at where they were attached.
Optional: Sketch the inside of the pepper, focusing on the chambers, ribs, and seed placement, or color one of the free coloring sheets.
Optional: Compare multiple peppers if you have them:
Do they have the same number of chambers?
Are the seeds arranged differently?
Does color affect structure?
What to Notice
Look closely before you explain anything. What does your child notice? They might see chambers arranged around the center, repeating shapes, seeds attached near the central structure, thick or thin walls, differences in size and shape between peppers, or different colors on the outside but similar structures on the inside. There is not one "right" thing to notice, the goal is to observe, compare and wonder.
STEM Concepts
When we cut open a bell pepper, we're getting a real-life look at some of the structures that make up a fruit. The colorful outer wall is called the pericarp. Inside, you'll find the central placenta, where many of the seeds are attached. The sections or walls dividing the inside of the pepper help form its chambers.
Those seeds are especially interesting because they are part of how the pepper reproduces. The pepper is a fruit because it develops from a flower and contains seeds.
Bell peppers also give us an easy way to explore symmetry and pattern. Many bell peppers have three or four main lobes, creating a roughly repeating arrangement around the center., but not every pepper is exactly the same. That's part of what makes this activity interesting. Look at several peppers and compare them. Do they all have the same number of chambers? Are their shapes identical? Where are the seeds attached? Small differences like these are an easy way to introduce the idea of variation in nature.
Coloring Sheets
I have created two different versions of coloring sheets, one is simpler for younger kids, and one for older kids that they can use while exploring the pepper.
Keep the Conversation Going
After your exploration, ask:
What did you notice first?
How many chambers did your pepper have?
Were all the chambers the same size?
Where were the seeds attached?
Did every pepper look the same inside?
Why do you think the seeds are located where they are?
What questions do you still have?
You don't need to know all the answers before you begin. Sometimes the best STEM activities start with simply looking closely and asking: “What do you notice?”
Kitchen Science: This Week's CSA Dish
Crunchy Pepper Snack Plate with Hummus
Sometimes kitchen science doesn't require cooking at all. This week's bell peppers were perfect for a simple snack plate. Their different colors, crisp texture, and natural sweetness gave us another opportunity to observe and compare.
You can pair them with your favorite hummus, homemade or store-bought. If you make your own hummus, blending gives you an additional opportunity to watch how mechanical force changes the texture of food.
Ingredients:
Bell Peppers
Your favorite hummus
Optional: carrots, cucumbers, or other vegetables
Steps:
Wash and dry the vegetables.
Cut the peppers into strips or bite-sized pieces.
Arrange the vegetables on a plate.
Add hummus for dipping. *
Compare the colors, textures, smells, and flavors.
*If you're making homemade hummus, let your child watch the ingredients change from separate, recognizable pieces into a smooth mixture.
How Kids Can Help
Washing and drying the peppers
Cutting peppers with an appropriate child-safe knife
Removing seeds
Sorting peppers by color
Arranging the snack plate
Taste testing different colors
Adding ingredients to a food processor with adult supervision
Predicting what will happen when the hummus is blended
Kid Skill Highlights
Fine motor skills: washing, removing seeds, cutting, and arranging
Sorting and comparison: noticing color and size differences
Sensory exploration: crispness, sweetness, smell, and texture
STEM observation: noticing how mechanical force changes food
Cooking Reflection
Pick two or three questions to ask your child after the activity. If they're enjoying the conversation, keep going!
Which pepper color did you like best?
Did the peppers all taste the same?
Which pepper felt the crunchiest?
What changed when the hummus was blended?
What did you notice first?
What surprised you?
Cooking Observations and The Science Behind Them
Food gives us plenty of opportunities to notice small changes and connect them to science.
Color: Bell peppers change color as they mature. Green peppers are generally less mature, while peppers that ripen to red, yellow, or orange develop different pigments and often become sweeter.
Texture: Raw bell peppers are crisp because their plant cells and cell walls help maintain their structure. Their high-water content also contributes to that juicy crunch.
Seeds: The seeds are attached to the central placenta inside the pepper. This structure helps support the seeds as they develop.
Hummus texture: When chickpeas and other ingredients are blended, mechanical force breaks the food into much smaller pieces and disrupts the original structure. The result is a smooth, creamy texture that looks and feels very different from the ingredients we started with.
Science Words to Know
You don't need to memorize these words! They're simply useful vocabulary for describing what you're noticing.
Pericarp: The part of a fruit that develops from the flower's ovary and forms the outer wall around the seeds.
Placenta: The structure inside the pepper where the seeds are attached.
Symmetry: When parts of a shape or object have a balanced or repeating arrangement.
Variation: Differences that naturally occur between individuals of the same kind.
Mechanical force: A physical action, such as cutting, crushing, or blending, that changes an object's shape or structure.
Closing
The unexpected peppers gave us a fresh moment to pause and notice what’s changing in the fields, and the patterns tucked inside each color.
A bell pepper became a little lesson in plant structure, seeds, symmetry, and variation. Then, at snack time, we had another opportunity to notice color, texture, taste, and the changes that happen when food is physically transformed.
These small, simple observations make it easy to weave STEM into everyday life, helping kids slow down, look closely, and connect kitchen moments to how plants grow.
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