Inviting preservice elementary teachers to partake 
in savory science

Preconference Workshop 

Annual meeting of the Association for the Education of Teachers in Science 
January 8-11, 2004
Nashville, TN.

Richard Frazier
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
2132 Lovinger
Central Missouri State University
Warrensburg, MO 64093

660-543-8391
frazier@cmsu1.cmsu.edu

Abstract:

Cooking and eating are the most intimate of everyday practices and offer a comfortable and compelling bridge into science for preservice elementary teachers.

Helping preservice elementary teachers develop enthusiasm for science and confidence in teaching science is a great challenge. Many interns exhibit and profess anxiety, discomfort, and even fear regarding the subject. Analyses of teaching candidates' dispositions toward science and science teaching identify lack of content knowledge, lack of pedagogical knowledge, fear that children know more, fear that children ask difficult questions, lack of positive experience with inquiry, and even resistance toward inquiry.
	Food and cooking can serve as an effective bridge into science for preservice teachers who might otherwise be reluctant to take up the adventure of helping children learn science. There are a number of pedagogical reasons for the effectiveness as well as generative and integrative curricular opportunities afforded by the topics.
 
•	Cooking and eating are the most intimate of everyday practices and yield rich domains of existing knowledge and relevance for both the interns and for children.
•	Preservice elementary teachers may have expert levels of craft knowledge related to foods and cooking.
•	The everyday knowledge and the craft knowledge interns and children may have map favorably onto standard science in a variety of disciplines from physics and chemistry to biology, botany, ecology, health and nutrition, economics, and geography, and even politics and history.
•	The skills involved in learning about and experimenting with foods and cooking include measuring of all kinds, procedural discourse and practice, controlled material transformation, identification and manipulation of variables, and evaluation of performance and results.
•	Results of investigations include the definitive, the tentative, and the uncertain and thus, relate authentically to "real world" science. 

Several examples suggest the power of the approach to recruit both children and preservice teachers into the scientific enterprise. At a summer science camp at a Navajo school in the Southwest, a teacher planned a weeklong inquiry into chemical and physical reactions and changes for her second grade class. At the close of an initial assessment activity, the teacher was collecting examples from her students as to what they thought reactions might be. A wide-eyed young boy asked enthusiastically, "Is fry bread a chemical reaction?" From the child's question, a couple of teachers in the camp developed units where they explored ingredients, recipes, processes, and family histories during the regular year. This author related the story to preservice teachers in a physics course on the first day of the fall semester. Before the syllabus was even discussed the entire class was involved in making dough, cooking fry bread, and planning their first investigation into the tasty food. Interns who normally expressed trepidation at the thought of "Physics" immediately assumed leadership roles, questioned the recipe, and proposed modifications that were eventually turned into controlled investigations. Making a food together on the first day of a class set the tone for the rest of the semester. That such a complex cultural icon brought children into science in one setting and preservice teachers into physics in another suggests the rich possibilities.
As a middle school science teacher in an overseas school, the author often included economic botany and ethno-botany in a program called the Local Environment. Growing plants and tasting their products always strengthened the connections expatriate adolescents experienced with plants, people, and place. 
As a teacher educator, the author has seen preservice elementary teachers assigned curricular topics like food chains and food webs in host classrooms during field experiences. Too often the initial plans include abstract simulations where the children are compelled to ignore their own position in the natural world. Good teaching ought to begin with the child, and what would be more appropriate to the study of food chains and food webs than what we eat and where it comes from! Such a personal and ecological approach lends well to other important parts of the elementary curriculum like nutrition and health. Intimate and savory investigations of food and cooking in the elementary classroom also make the discussion of food as fuel and food as building material more complete.
Elementary teachers and children also enjoy investigations into non-Newtonian fluids (like the cornstarch and water mixture often called oobleck). Sometimes the activities are arranged to suggest that such mixtures are unusual. In fact, cooking and eating routinely involve fascinating mixtures like gravies, sauces, beaten egg whites, beaten cream, syrups, batters, dough, roux, as well as a variety of condiments (catsup, jelly, jam, etc.). Cooking provides, as well, some of the best analogies for earth processes and earth science can pose a challenge to the novice teacher who is looking for "hands on" activities.
Content that engages those candidates who are reluctant and resistant students of science is critical for the successful education of elementary teachers. The power of cooking to recruit preservice elementary teachers (as well as middle level and elementary students) into inquiry-based science has been employed firsthand by the author. The topics of foods and cooking offer comfortable, meaningful, legitimate, and tasty links into a variety of areas of interest to teacher educators, teachers-in-training, and their future students. 
In this pre-conference workshop, we will look specifically at the diversity of techniques for preparing botanical infusions like coffee and tea. We will also explore the physical, chemical, botanical, and cultural aspects of various flours, flatbreads, pancakes, and fritters. Examples will include roti canai from Malaysia, beans akara from Sierra Leone, chapatti from India, tortilla from Mexico, hush puppies from the American South, and fry bread from the Navajo Nation. This will definitely be a hands-on course. Extensive references (including recipes and teaching ideas) will be included.
Participants will first carry out preparations on various foods/drinks and then initiate simple inquiries that can be accomplished within our time frame and that can also lead to more developed explorations appropriate to various situations and interests. Discussion will focus on two levels: 

1.	The science content that arises from investigations of food and cooking.
2.	The benefits of using foods and cooking as exemplary activities in the preparation of preservice elementary teachers.

Safety is a particular concern in science and the use of cooking and foods as the “objects of study” may at first seem troublesome. There are a number of approaches that can take advantage of the strong scientific tradition of examining the science of foods and cooking as well as the standards for science safety in the elementary classroom.
	Physical hazards come largely from the use of heat. When heat is needed in the elementary classroom, electrical sources are recommended. In state and national guidelines eye protection is required whenever elementary students use heat. Cooking is not an uncommon activity in elementary school and is widespread in home living classes in middle school. When cooking takes place as a science activity, the safety awareness and preparation should exceed that in other classes where food preparation might occur.
	Hazards from toxic materials preclude food preparation and eating in a chemistry laboratory. Any culinary activities in school should take place only in settings free from the threat of any toxic contamination.
	Hazards from pathogens preclude food preparation and eating in biology laboratories. In the elementary setting, standards of hygiene and cleanliness must be upheld. Typically there is little danger in elementary school from the kinds of pathogen that might be present in a dedicated biology laboratory. However, the presence of classroom animals must be taken into consideration in evaluating the safety of the classroom for activities involving food and cooking.
	Protecting susceptible students from the hazards of allergens is the responsibility of the classroom teacher and the school health professionals. Substances known to provoke severe reactions (like peanuts, peanut products, chocolate) should not be used in a school setting without a thorough check into the allergic histories of the students.
	The American Chemical Society recommends that elementary science activities requiring tasting should take place in the cafeteria. This recommendation must be based more on the hope of instilling good laboratory habits in children rather than the fear of contamination by toxin or pathogen in an elementary classroom. Tasting by children in American elementary classrooms is a common practice at Halloween, Thanksgiving, Winter Holiday, Valentine’s Day, and other holidays. The intent of this workshop is to make use of teacher’s comfort and children’s interest in foods and cooking as ways of fostering deeper engagement in science. 
	With an awareness of safety practices, guidelines, and standards, inservice teachers, preservice teachers, and teacher educators can evaluate the settings where “culinary” science activities are scheduled. When a science or regular classroom presents hazards, then other venues must be sought. These may be in the school itself or in an adequate facility off campus. 

The following selected references suggest the range of scientific interest to be found in the topics of food and cooking. Helping preservice teachers discover their own connections to science can only benefit their future students.  

Alford, Jeffrey and Duguid, Naomi (1995). Flatbreads and Flavors: A Baker’s Atlas. William Morrow and Company, Inc.

Barlow, Connie (2000). The Ghosts of Evolution: Nonsensical Fruit, Missing Partners, and Other Ecological Anachronisms. Basic Books.

Barlow, H.S. (1994). Tropical Planting and Gardening. Scientific Publishers.

***Barham, Peter (2001). The Science of Cooking. Springer-Verlag.

***Bazin, Maurice and Tamez, Modesto (and the Exploratorium Teacher Institute). Math and Science Across Cultures: Activities and Investigations from the Exploratorium. The New Press.

Bladholm, Linda (1999). The Asian Grocery Store Demystified. Renaissance Books. St. Martin's Press.

Bladholm, Linda (2000). The Indian Grocery Store Demystified. Renaissance Books. St. Martin's Press.

Bladholm, Linda (2001). Latin and Caribbean Grocery Stores Demystified. Renaissance Books. St. Martin's Press. 

***Brockway, Lucille (2002). Science and Colonial Expansion: The Role of the British Botanic Gardens. Yale University Press. 

Cajete, Gregory (1999). A People’s Ecology: Explorations in Sustainable Living—Health, Environment, Agriculture, Native Traditions. Clear Light Publishers.

Capon, Brian (1990). Botany for Gardeners. Timber Press.

***Carlson, S. and Greaves, S. (1999). The Amateur Scientist: The Complete Twentieth Century Collection. Tinker’s Guild and Scientific American, Inc.
 < http://www.tinkersguild.com/ > (several inquiries on cooking by Jearl Walker)

***Cobb, Vicki (1994). Science Experiments You Can Eat. HarperTrophy.

Coe, Sophie (1994). America’s First Cuisines. University of Texas Press.

***Editors of Cook’s Illustrated (1999). The Best Recipe. Boston Common Press.

***Crosby, Alfred (1972). The Columbian Exchange: The Biological Consequences of 1492. Greenwood Press Paperback. 

***Crosby, Alfred (1993). Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900. Cambridge University Press. 

Diamond, Jared ( 1996). Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. W.W. Norton.

Dunmire, William and Tierney, Gail (1997). Wild Plants and Native Peoples of the Four Corners. Museum of New Mexico Press.

Dunn, Kevin (2003). Caveman Chemistry: 28 Projects, from the Creation of Fire to the Production of Plastics. Universal Publishers. http://www.CavemanChemistry.com

Dyasi, Rebecca and Crane, Louise (eds.) (1983). Good Tastes in Africa. African Outreach Series, No. 3. African Studies Program. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Egerton, John (1987). Southern Food: At Home, On the Road, In History. Alfred A. Knopf.

***Frazier, Richard (2003). Exotic Excursions in Botany. Website to accompany short course at NSTA-2003 in Philadelphia. http://www.geocities.com/rafmcm/botany.html

Gardiner, Anne and Wilson, Sue (with the Exploratorium) (1998). The Inquisitive Cook: Discover How a Pinch of Curiosity Can Improve Your Cooking. Henry Holt and Company.

Hartmann, H.T., Kester, D.E., and Davies, F.T. (1990). Plant Propagation: Principles and Practices. Prentice-Hall International. (link to new edition)

Hess, Karen (1998 ). Carolina Rice Kitchen: The African Connection. University of South Carolina Press.

Hillman, Howard (1989). Kitchen Science: A Guide to Knowing the Hows and Whys for Fun and Success in the Kitchen. Houghton Mifflin.

Howe, Sonia (1946). In Quest of Spices. Herbert Jenkins Limited. (Included on suggested reading list about spices from American Spice Trade Association).

Hudson, Charles (1976). The Southeastern Indians. The University of Tennessee Press.

Hutton, Wendy (1989). Singapore Food. Times Books International.

Illy, Ernesto (2002). The Complexity of Coffee. Scientific American, June, 2002. Available online at http://www.illyuse.com/pr/pdf

Jacquat, Christiane (1990). Plants from the Markets of Thailand. Duang Komol Books.

Johns, Timothy (1990). The Origins of Human Diet and Medicine. The University of Arizona Press.

Kennedy, Diana (1972). The Cuisines of Mexio. Harper and Row.

Kikoin, I.K. (ed.) (1985). Physics in Your Kitchen Lab. Mir Publishers.

Kindscher, Kelly (1992 ). Medicinal Wild Plants of the Prairie: An Ethnobotanical Guide. University Press of Kansas. 

Kuper, Jessica (ed.) (1977). The Anthropologists' Cookbook. Universe Books.

***McGee, Harold (1984). On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. Macmillan.

McGee, Harold (1990). The Curious Cook: More Kitchen Science and Lore. Hungry Minds, Inc.

McWilliams, Margaret (1997). Foods: Experimental Perspectives. 3rd Edition. Prentice-Hall.

Milton, Giles (1999). Nathaniel's Nutmeg: The True and Incredible Adventures of the Spice Trader Who Changed the Course of History. Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.

Mintz, Stanley (1986). Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. Penguin.

Niethammer, Carolyn (1974/1999). American Indian Cooking: Recipes from the Southwest. University of Nebraska Press.

Prendergrast, Mark (1999). Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How it Transformed Our World. Basic Books.

Roden, Claudia (1968/1972). A Book of Middle Eastern Food. Vintage Books.

Selsam, Millicent and Peterson, Deborah (1977). The Don't Throw It Grow It Book of Houseplants. Random House. (out of print--but an excellent resource for the classroom--available in some used book shops)

***Semper, R. (PI). The Accidental Scientist: The Science of Cooking. The Exploratorium.
http://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/index.html

Singh, Dharamjit (1970/1981). Indian Cookery. Penguin Books.

Smith, Andrew (1994 ). The Tomato in America: Early History, Culture, and Cookery. University of South Carolina Press.

Smith, Andrew. (1999) Popped Culture: The Social History of Popped Corn. University of South Carolina Press.

Sokolov, Raymond (1979/1998). Fading Feast: A Compendium of Disappearing American Regional Foods. David R. Godine, Publisher.

***Sokolov, Raymond (1991). Why We Eat What We Eat: How the Encounter Between the New World and the Old Changed the Way Everyone on the Planet Eats. Summit Books.

***Walker, Harlan (ed.) (1990). Staple Foods. Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 1989. Prospect Books.

Walker, Jearl (1977). The Flying Circus of Physics with Answers. John Wiley and Sons.

Weinberg, Bennett and Bealer, Bonnie (2001). The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World’s Most Popular Drug. Routledge.

Wilson, Ellen Gibson (1971). A West African Cookbook. Avon Books.