Washngton STEM Students Learn About Science in Cooking
Posted
David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
There’s a lot of science behind cooking, and fifth-graders at Washington STEM Academy Thursday learned a little about it with the help of Cerulean Restaurant co-owner Caleb France. Ben Barkey, Washington STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) coach, said that as part of fifth-graders’ physical science standards, they’re learning about the connection between cooking and science. They’re doing experiments, with France serving as an expert for Thursday’s activity. The classes have talked about vacuums and their relationship with cooking interactions, which was what yesterday’s cooking experience was about. France said Cerulean uses a vacuum over 50 times a day. For Thursday’s experiment, he said they were highlighting decreasing pressure in a vacuum. “When you decrease the amount of oxygen by 97 percent, liquids will boil,” he said, and food like pieces of pineapple will cook at room temperature. Plant cells have vacuoles which will burst in the process. Once they burst, the liquid takes the place of the air inside the vacuoles. Infusion of the pineapple takes place at the same time. When the chamber vacuum is open, the pressure returns to normal and crushes the pineapple, and any liquids and spices get sucked into the pineapple. The Washington students put pieces of pineapple into bags, and then chose three spices to add to it. A ladle of sugar water was added to the bag, then it was sealed and put into the chamber vacuum. The choice of spices included juniper, cloves, star anise, Korean chili flakes, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, salt, lavender and green cardamom. Three guest judges sampled the pineapples to pick the best flavored, with the winning team from each class getting to make anything they wanted with the school’s 3D printer. Guest judges were Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert, School Board President Jennifer Tandy and Chief Academic Officer David Robertson. Winning teams in each class were, Slone: Jessica Mason, Alexis Hall, Ayrdon James and Marissa Sills; White: Sophia Guerra, Max Milller, Taylor Escobedo; and Burden: Jaslyn Brock, Sam Justice and Emilee Schmucher.
