In South Australia, Year 8 students are encouraged to participate in a unit of Food Technology as a component of their curriculum – at PLHS, this learning falls under the banner of the Health & Physical Education faculty. This term, students from 8H and 8A have been learning how to prepare some favourite home-cooked meals – the dishes included spaghetti bolognaise (“not quite as good as Mum’s”) and butter chicken, as well as treats like chocolate chip cookies and pork potsticker dumplings.
To capitalise on learning opportunities and success, our students were given the agency to be the driving forces behind these lessons. This meant students were responsible for negotiating the dish of the week, finding then adapting recipes, and writing a shopping list.
It has been rewarding and fun to see their confidence levels in the kitchen and around food choices improve so rapidly across the learning sequence.
~ Miss Abbey Degner (HPE Teacher)
