This week, I had the opportunity to try a unique food science lab where students were tasked with tasting apple pie samples and comparing and contrasting the tastes, color, texture and aroma between the two. What they did not know is that one pie was made out of ritz crackers, and did not contain any apples whatsoever! This completely shattered their minds! We will be continuing to explore this as the week continues as we dive into sensory evaluation. This lab took hours to prepare as I had baked 2 apple pies with KP's aunt sue the night before. Earlier this week, I also prepared 4 Breakout EDU boxes for food science, and made a late night run to GIANT for materials for triangle testing as well. Classroom labs and activities such as these are incredibly time consuming and require a lot of materials at times. As much as I enjoy working with the food science class, it can be a lot to prepare for one class with some of these labs. Not only that, but I lack storage for some of the materials to be completely prepared. I'm looking at ways to create more students involvement in the preparation process so that students can have more ownership and I can spend less time on getting everything ready myself. I'm also wondering how teachers who teach such involved classes manage to chunk these longer labs into 45 minute segments, so as to allow for adequate review and cleanup on top of each lab.
Monday, April 1, 2019
Field Experience with Field Trips
One thing I never anticipated from a field trip away from school, especially for a week long trip, was having plans for the week you return having no idea what you will return to. It really is so much more work to leave school for a period of time because of everything you have to get into order before you go, and all of the regrouping you have to do when you return. Not only that, we had our area CDE competitions on Tuesday of that week, which also required sub plans upon my return. Despite all of the craziness of the week, It was a pretty great week. I survived another evaluation, and I am now in the downward slope of student teaching. My goal is to keep the energy going, and refine some of my technique while taking some risks in the classroom as I explore who Mr. Rupert will be as an agriculture teacher.
This week, I had the opportunity to try a unique food science lab where students were tasked with tasting apple pie samples and comparing and contrasting the tastes, color, texture and aroma between the two. What they did not know is that one pie was made out of ritz crackers, and did not contain any apples whatsoever! This completely shattered their minds! We will be continuing to explore this as the week continues as we dive into sensory evaluation. This lab took hours to prepare as I had baked 2 apple pies with KP's aunt sue the night before. Earlier this week, I also prepared 4 Breakout EDU boxes for food science, and made a late night run to GIANT for materials for triangle testing as well. Classroom labs and activities such as these are incredibly time consuming and require a lot of materials at times. As much as I enjoy working with the food science class, it can be a lot to prepare for one class with some of these labs. Not only that, but I lack storage for some of the materials to be completely prepared. I'm looking at ways to create more students involvement in the preparation process so that students can have more ownership and I can spend less time on getting everything ready myself. I'm also wondering how teachers who teach such involved classes manage to chunk these longer labs into 45 minute segments, so as to allow for adequate review and cleanup on top of each lab.
This week, I had the opportunity to try a unique food science lab where students were tasked with tasting apple pie samples and comparing and contrasting the tastes, color, texture and aroma between the two. What they did not know is that one pie was made out of ritz crackers, and did not contain any apples whatsoever! This completely shattered their minds! We will be continuing to explore this as the week continues as we dive into sensory evaluation. This lab took hours to prepare as I had baked 2 apple pies with KP's aunt sue the night before. Earlier this week, I also prepared 4 Breakout EDU boxes for food science, and made a late night run to GIANT for materials for triangle testing as well. Classroom labs and activities such as these are incredibly time consuming and require a lot of materials at times. As much as I enjoy working with the food science class, it can be a lot to prepare for one class with some of these labs. Not only that, but I lack storage for some of the materials to be completely prepared. I'm looking at ways to create more students involvement in the preparation process so that students can have more ownership and I can spend less time on getting everything ready myself. I'm also wondering how teachers who teach such involved classes manage to chunk these longer labs into 45 minute segments, so as to allow for adequate review and cleanup on top of each lab.
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Hey Mr. Rupert! Great post this week! You're spot on! It takes SO much to be away from school! Someone once told me to just have a binder of sub stuff, but I never got around to preparing it, and on trimesters, didn't have the flexibility in the schedule to have a "down" day! Never mind that it didn't really align with my philosophy.
ReplyDeleteYou've also made a really important observation with IB and PB classes. They're high energy, lots of fun, high-light-bulb-moment classes, but they're also incredibly time and setup intensive. I had a year that I would go CASE, PLTW, Welding, Food Science, lunch, Engines. Ouch. How do you even setup for all that?? That same year, I had a TA, and she was instrumental in getting things setup. Having students make the shopping lists or rotating through the "setup" of the lab can be great learning for your students and can help save you some time. It also takes a little of the weight off you. If someone misses putting an item on the list, it spreads the mistake. You recover, you move on, but it's good for students to share some stake in the success of the activities.
The time issue, on the other hand, is no joke! By the time everyone gets in, you take attendance and do announcements, and you leave 5-10 minutes at the end to clean up (depending on the lab), you're down to 30 minutes of actual lab time. I taught on a 50-minute period and managed this a few ways. First: pre-labs (written out materials, procedure, and hypothesis) were required entry tickets to class to get the lab started. In my Food Chem class, I did a few labs where I assigned students groups as they walked in with completed pre-labs. It was a powerful lesson for the students who hadn't done their work and then had to find other time to come in to do the lab (they had to sit in the hall and finish their prelab before I let them in). I would do that pretty early in the year to set the expectation. Students got it down fairly quickly, and once they showed me they could do a lab, we reduced what the pre-lab looked like. This gave them some benefit to doing their pre-lab beyond being able to conduct the lab itself.
Even then, there are some labs you just can't get done in 30 minutes. Being strategic with setup and "essential" parts of the lab becomes really important. For example: if you have students do that apple pie lab start to finish, it's a day in pre-lab, one day in preparing the pies, pies cooking during your other classes, and a day of sensory eval. If you make the pies, you shrink it to one day. What you cut really depends on your objectives and overall philosophy. What is the point of the lab? Is it that students learn how to do sensory evaluation? Is it that they get a literal "taste" of what food science class will be? Is it to practice measuring/preparing food? Is it a connection point regarding food substitutes? Right now, those objectives are probably a little more set for you, but some food for thought as you continue thinking about what Mr. Rupert's classroom will look like next year. :-)
Ditto on Becky.
ReplyDeleteJk - you two are really my ideal pairing :)