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Inspired Teacher Blog
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Tips for Teaching Through Food Metaphors
By, James Abbatiello
7th Grade Science Teacher
What I love about using food to teach science and math is that it takes
these abstract, foreign concepts and creates experiences that bring
them closer to home. Kids may not understand why minerals are
important. But when they are given the task to create their own
toothpaste using household minerals -- suddenly what lived on textbook
pages jumps into their own lives.
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What can I teach with food?
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Think back to when you were a kid. What were your favorite things to eat? As you remember, can you recall how they tasted, smelled, looked?
Chances are good you remember these foods quite clearly.
This is because your senses of smell and taste are some of the strongest when it comes to retaining, and being able to recall memories. Unfortunately, these senses are pretty much confined to the cafeteria in the traditional school setting. While there's no guarantee that your students will remember classroom experiences involving food, some research suggests that olfactory memories can stay sharp for as long as a year. With all you want your students to learn and remember - perhaps it's time to bring something edible into the plan! Here are a few ideas:
Math
Candy Polygons - using licorice, or taffy, students construct various shapes, measure angles with a protractor, and calculate area and perimeter.
Cooking Measurements - use fractions to increase or reducing servings in a recipe.
Tasty Estimation - estimate the number of chips in a chocolate chip cookie, jelly beans in a jar, apples it would take to fill a box, etc.
Food Fractions - order a pizza for the class and have students figure out how to use fractions to slice it up equally.
Science
Pudding Cup Soil Samples - create the soil horizons in a cup using pudding and crumbled cookies. Have students practice taking core samples with a clear straw.
Edible Cell Models - construct and label a model of a plant or animal cell using edible parts.
Mailing a Potato Chip - use the laws of physics to design a container that can safely send a potato chip, unbroken, through the mail.
Language Arts / English
Descriptive Food Poems - use poetic devices like alliteration, simile, and metaphor to describe a favorite food.
Expository Cooking Lesson - write a radio show that describes how to cook a family recipe
Social Studies
Hemisphere Oranges - teach about longitude, latitude, and the hemispheres by having students label an orange - as if it were the world.
Whole Foods Through History - choose a whole food (like rice, corn, fish, salt) and study its role in different cultures throughout history. Write a report and share it, along with samples of the food, with the class.
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Inspired Teacher Homework:
How have you used food in the classroom? Please send Jenna
a short description of your strategies. If your idea is selected for
inclusion in the next newsletter, we'll send you a thank-you gift! Last week we asked: How do you celebrate the season with your students?"I teach an elementary school ESL class and my students are mostly from South and Central America. At this time of year I like having discussions with them about all the holidays that fall within this season. It's a good opportunity to validate all the different beliefs represented in my room. I ask my students to share stories about how they celebrated in the countries where they were born, or how they celebrate with their families now. Everyone in the class uses a lot of questioning to better understand the stories. They build their vocabulary more easily with this kind of activity because they're excited to share stories that relate to their families." ~ Katherine Sullivan
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Teacher Resources
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FoodMASTER
"The FoodMASTER initiative is a compilation of hands-on and virtual programs that use food to teach math and science skills. Subjects covered include biology, chemistry, microbiology, nutrition, and health, as well as math concepts such as numbers and operations, algebra, geometry, measurement, and problem solving."
Slow Food, Slow Schools :
Transforming Education through a School Lunch Curriculum
Renown chef and writer Alice Waters talks about how the slow food movement could positively influence schools. This essay gives a wonderful description of one school's "Edible Schoolyard."
Food Timeline
This site features dozens of food history lessons and resources.
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