Among the new educational tools and new ways of teaching/learning of the last 20 years, educational approaches based on constructivism are of great interest because they offer the possibility for students to build scientific concepts from experimental observations. Cooking is truly a universal topic--it can be considered a true multidisciplinary…

This article is an attempt to create new ways for students to appreciate the complexities and diversity of the Middle East's foodways and thus of their people and societies. It takes a broad view of the region that is historically inclusive, stretching from Morocco and al-Andalus (Spain) in the west to Iran in the east and from modern-day Turkey…

Cooking is a common experience in preschool classrooms, where teachers provide hands-on opportunities with ingredients in the process of following standard recipes. What sets this story apart is the way that the teacher supports the children in designing their own cookie recipe in an authentic way, using experimentation and manipulation of cookies…

Students in the Didactic Program in Dietetics (DPD) at the University of Maine were exposed to the cheese-making process, within a lab setting of two hours, utilizing an accelerated recipe for a Queso Fresco-style cheese. The purpose of this project was to provide students with a novel, hands-on learning experience, which covered concepts of…

Mobile learning is an educational strategy that uses mobile technologies in order to promote and enable learning. Mobile learning also encompasses efforts to support broad educational goals across numerous fields as it caters to the effective administration of learning systems and more improved communication between educational institutions,…

Video--once complex and expensive to create with high distribution costs--has become more affordable and highly accessible in addition to being a powerful teaching tool. Self-produced videos are one way educators can connect with a growing number of on-line learners. The authors describe a pilot project in which a series of video clips were…

Hands-on, inquiry-based, and relevant to every student's life, "Gourmet Lab" serves up a full menu of activities for science teachers of grades 6-12. This collection of 15 hands-on experiments--each of which includes a full set of both student and teacher pages--challenges students to take on the role of scientist and chef, as they boil,…

Plant lifelong healthy eating concepts in young children and counteract the prevalence of childhood obesity with "Early Sprouts." A research-based early childhood curriculum, this "seed-to-table" approach gets children interested in and enjoying nutritious fruits and vegetables. The "Early Sprouts" model engages…

This is a practical introduction to blended learning, presenting examples of implementation across a broad spectrum of disciplines. For faculty unfamiliar with this mode of teaching, it illustrates how to address the core challenge of blended learning--to link the activities in each medium so that they reinforce each other to create a single,…

A qualitative analysis of four cooking activities undertaken in two nursery classes reveals relationships between the adults' pedagogical beliefs, the choice and structuring of activities, and the nature of adult-child participation. Four adults each planned and carried out separately, one cooking activity of their choice with a small group of…