The Fast and Furious Food Lab Challenge
FACS 2 is a new course I was able to create this year. I had these 8th graders last year as 7th graders- or during the first semester of 8th grade. It’s a more advanced Family and Consumer Science course that allows the students to learn a bit more about the junior high standards.
FACS 1 cooking units allow students to learn the basics of working together and working in the kitchen. They were creating simple recipes. FACS 2 was designed to build upon those foundational skills and focus in on various cooking techniques, including using a propane grill. The grills were part of a grant I received and my classroom conveniently has an outside door to the courtyard to keep the grills in a safe place.
One food lab I had rolling around in my mind was a larger lab leaving the students in charge of being creative. Not only were students expected to make the meal plan, but also set the table including a table scape.
I can assure you, this lab didn’t disappoint. I was floored how seriously they took the lab and how well they executed their ideas. Even the groups who didn’t quite fulfill my vision for setting the table, still managed to go above and beyond with the meal.
Food Lab Challenge
I let students pick their own groups for this lab and certainly would not have allowed that if students were not able to handle it. One hour lost their privilege to choose for the previous two labs. Another smaller hour of 15 had students moving and shuffling, leaving two girls in a group together. Both seemed alright with working as a pair, which I allowed.
A week before the lab, groups picked a processed and a fresh food choice. They were to complete 2 courses and must include the two food items in some way. Groups had two planning days to research recipes, make decisions, and create a shopping list. While it would have been a great life skill for students to check the kitchen for the items already available, I wanted to make sure there was enough of each item and asked for every single item for their meal prep.
My live and learn moment: Next time I will create a Google Form or Sheet that will then allow me to automatically arrange the list. I had each group write out a paper list on the same paper I use when I grocery shop for the cooking labs. I have a table with the aisle number, brand, price, quantity. Going through 9 kitchens worth of shopping lists resulted in 3 trips to the store. I will still require students to find the aisle number because it helps speed up the process.
My second live and learn moment: I am not certain I totally realized what each group was preparing, even though I thought I had it under control. One group had randomly drawn pumpkin and used pumpkin seeds as their course.
Setting the table and creating a table scape
Proper place settings are not always a skill students have experienced when coming to class. I like to find shorter YouTube videos to give students a visual about setting the table and creating a table scape. This allows students an opportunity to watch the video again later if they need a reminder. It is also a perfect way for absent students to stay caught up on the learning from the missed day.
I allowed students to use any of the items I brought from home- cloth napkins, small votive holders, Olive Garden style cheese grater, waffle maker, etc. Students were not expected to purchase anything for the table scape, but could bring items from home. There were a few groups who did purchase items.
Their grade would include the proper place setting with silverware and also the presentation of the table. In the future, I will plan to have a few more table cloths and cloth napkins to keep in the classroom for practice. Students even went as far as looking on YouTube how to fold napkins, which made for a great creative piece.
My live and learn moment: My two FACS 2 hours are back-to-back. I will alternate days for the final lab because getting the tables cleaned up and the first set of students out in enough time for the second group to get tables ready was a challenge.
Prepping the food
Students prepped food for 2.5 days. Class periods are 49 minutes and only had half of the class period to prepare food on presentation day.
Allowing students to figure out recipes and shopping lists almost a week before allowed me to give a deadline for grocery shopping. They first shopping trip was a cartful, the second trip was the “My teacher forgot list”, thankfully was not very long, and the third trip was the very last minute things I had still forgot to pick up in the first two trips.
Students were able to cut, chop, cook, bake, etc as needed during these 2.5 days. I remained a constant shadow moving around the room checking on things. Other students were practicing their napkin folding and deciding how to best create a table scape.
I have a tree trunk coin on my wall and plants on my desk. At one point, an all boy group took the tree coin off the wall and decided they would also be using one of my plants. It actually was a great decision on their part. I was impressed!
While prepping the food, we realized I forgot to get pasta for a third kitchen. The same all-boy group mentioned above decided to make noodles from scratch, having never tried it before. I also have never tried it before so I still picked up noodles on my third shopping trip and made them add some of the store bought noodles to the pot of boiling water, just in case.
I was blown away that their quick Google search and fearless attitude resulted in a guest judge favorite. I tried one bite and was pleasantly surprised. I suppose that’s a challenge any FACS teacher can appreciate as we teach cooking and comfortability in the kitchen.
Presentation day
Students were prepped with the arrival time for the guest judges. Guest judges would be visiting the classroom for 20ish minutes and would rotate through five tables sampling the food. Kitchens went ahead and plated the food in the kitchen and then placed the food on their assigned table for the guest judges. Usually my students take a serving to a guest judge, but this time 8-10 guest judges came to my room.
You can read more about why I value guest judges in this blog post.
Guest judges were encouraged to try a few bites of each course at each table. Instead of the usual paper feedback form, there were QR codes to a Google Form for feedback. Guest judges then hopped tables to try the food from each kitchen.
Table settings were incredible- talk about wedding vibes at a few. Some were simplistic, some were lacking visual appeal, but overall, there was a lot of creativity.
My live and learn moment: As I mentioned earlier, I would alternate days for the presentation day to allow for less stress and more time to clean up.
My second live and learn moment: Next time, I will only have students create one course rather than two. It ended up being A LOT of food. Students plated food so well, but it was a large portion. I would also recommend students plate 2-3 bites of food, especially if continuing to keep an expectation of 2 courses.
Overall, this lab was exhausting. It was a week of holding my breathe to make sure everything was in place and it would work. It’s not about me though, it was incredible to see my students not only rise to the challenge, but exceed my expectations.
This lab not only taught them to be creative and find a recipe. It also taught teamwork, creating an inviting place to experience the food, and troubleshooting under pressure. There are only so many skills we can teach and prep students for, but actual experience is one of life’s greatest lessons.