In my opinion, knowing how to make a roux is a ” kitchen basic” that students should know how to create as it’s the base for many soups and sauces, including gravy. This interactive assignment incorporates a strategy that I’ve been seeing a lot lately, mostly in the ELA world where it’s used to summarize important text information. I thought it would work well as a way to highlight and summarize important food information. So, here is my rendition of a food related one pager.
My son recently introduced me to “starter pack memes” which I had to look up! He had to create one for a college “get to know you” activity and once I knew what it was, I thought it would make a great, fun and interactive activity. So, below you will find my starter pack meme ideas for topics that can be used in a variety of different content areas along with instructions for creating.
You might wonder why I have so many lessons and/or activities for the same topic. The truth is I teach three different classes where I need to cover “food safety” before I let students go into the lab/kitchen. I don’t want to do the same thing in each of those classes because many of my students I see again for other electives, hence, the need for variety! Even if you don’t teach multiple courses like I do, you may just want to shake up your own lesson or add this Food Safety: Web-Activity & Review to your arsenal of resources for future use!
Consumption of fruit in the daily diet is important for all age groups! What’s to love about fruit? A lot actually! Fruit is available in many forms from fresh to frozen to canned and even dried. Fruit is a nutrient dense, low calorie food that can be eaten alone as a snack or incorporated into a meal or dessert. Fruits can be eaten raw or cooked and there are so many to choose from, some more seasonal than others! This fruit lesson focuses on the classification of fruits, how to select quality fruits and explores enzymatic browning. It also features delicious galette labs. Galettes are unique to most students and a little different than making pies, but they are easy to make and amazingly delicious especially with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top!
Want a fun, creative and competitive way to incorporate Halloween themes into your foods class? Check out the project shared by Beth Beattie, a FCS teacher from Missouri who incorporates various parts of Halloween Wars into her Food Science class at Montgomery High School. It started as a way to showcase professions within the program and after viewing Halloween Wars, students decided they wanted to make it a competition!
Have you ever needed a short activity to fill time due to a “surprise” assembly, early dismissal or one class finishing before another? This activity can be stretched or shortened depending on your needs! Hangry is a real concept that most of us have experienced at one time or another and because of this, it can be a very relatable topic for students to talk about and make connections to. I’ve included some activities that work well with this topic, so, pick and choose or do them all!
Pasta is one of my all time favorite units to teach in my Foods unit! Pasta is so easy, versatile, and economical that I feel every student should know how to prepare before they leave high school! I always tell my students that they will never go hungry if they know how to cook pasta. Use the provided slide to navigate through a variety of resources to learn more about pasta as your students complete this assignment and work their way into the lab.
There is a huge emphasis on student directed learning and that meant that I would need to change the way I taught digestion. Sure, I could teach the process, all the organs and their functions to my students in a PPT and then give them a test, but that would not be very engaging, creative or student directed in any way. So, below is the new way I will be having my students learn about digestion.
Whenever I’m teaching my students about healthy food choices, the topic of junk food some how finds its way into the discussion, especially with junior high students. When I ask them for reasons as to why they don’t eat more healthy, nutritious foods such as fruits and vegetables, they tell me it’s because they don’t like the taste. In comparison, junk food tastes so much better! I promptly explain that it’s made that way, on purpose! So, when the January 2017 issue of Scholastic Choices came out with an article on just this topic, I was super excited to share it with my students! I also wanted to include a tech project associated with it, as I saw cartoon/comic strip written all over this. Below, you will see how I turned something students wanted to discuss into an educational, interactive assignment. The end results are so cool, like something out of a real comic book–your students are sure to enjoy the technology! Oh, and, did I mention that it’s free and super friendly and easy to use?
A student recently asked me why scrambled eggs tasted different at their friends and relatives houses compared to scrambled eggs made at home. Great question! I decided to let my students conduct an experiment by preparing scrambled eggs with different liquids in order to discover the effects each had on the eggs’ appearance, taste and texture. Not only did this experimental lab get the students into the kitchen to teach them how to make scrambled eggs, but it was a great way to incorporate a little food science into the curriculum as well!
