FARIBAULT, Minn. - You know you've entered the right kind of middle school science classroom when the afternoon's first question is, 'You guys hungry?'
Vayu Maini Rekdal posed that very question to his students before they started chopping tomatoes and onions for the salsa they'll have canned by the end of class.
It's all part of a curriculum Vayu calls the science of cooking.
'My dream is to bring this to every middle school in the county and maybe in the world,' says Vayu, a 22-year-old chemistry and biology major at Carleton College.
For now, the native of Sweden has been testing his curriculum in after-school programs in Northfield and Faribault.
The salsa that students are chopping and canning provides a perfect lesson in microbes.
Hanna Reed, another Carleton student, gathers students around a pot of boiling water. 'We have to make sure that can seals and that there's no living microbes getting in there,' she tell them.
In another class, students cooked omelets as they discussed the effects of heat on proteins.
'Last week we made emulsions, mixing oil and water, like a salad dressing - and thinking about the science that allows them to come together,' says Vayu.
Anne Marie Leland was thrilled to include Vayu's curriculum in the after school program she runs at the middle school. 'The more hands-on activities our students can have, the better that they will learn,' she says.
Vayu has already presented his vision in an internet TED Talk. In February he plans to present his curriculum at the Minnesota Association of Alternative Learning.
He's also created a website with recipes and lesson plans.
'It's edible science,' Vayu says. 'I mean there's no other place where you can eat your experiments.'
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Entities 0 Name: Vayu Count: 5 1 Name: FARIBAULT Count: 2 2 Name: Vayu Maini Rekdal Count: 1 3 Name: Carleton College Count: 1 4 Name: Anne Marie Leland Count: 1 5 Name: Minnesota Association of Alternative Learning Count: 1 6 Name: Minn. Count: 1 7 Name: Hanna Reed Count: 1 8 Name: Sweden Count: 1 9 Name: Northfield Count: 1 10 Name: Carleton Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1pK4iWN Title: Teacher spends two days as a student and is shocked at what she learns Description: Do teachers really know what students go through? To find out, one teacher followed two students for two days and was amazed at what she found. Her report is in following post, which appeared on the blog of Grant Wiggins, the co-author of " Understanding by Design" and the author of " Educative Assessment" and numerous articles on education.
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