Food Physics: Using Science-Based Cooking Demonstrations to Teach the Food-Energy-Water Nexus (Poster 5)

• In Event: Collaborative Development of a Framework for Food-Energy-Water-Nexus Education

Abstract

The daily act of cooking involves a complex set of thermodynamic manipulations involving food, energy and water to produce daily sustenance. Using cooking demonstrations as a framework for educating in the FEW-nexus is unique, approachable and relevant to everyday lives (Sogari, 2018). Through a wide-range of educational platforms, FEW-based cooking education has been used to attract a wide population to this topic at [blind] University and beyond. To date, these platforms include:
1. A general education course, PHY2220 “The Physics of Food and Cooking”. This class scans the entire food system, from a drop of water, through food choices, cooking strategies and equipment, national and world food grids and evaluates the physics and energy exchanges at play in this complex food system. Integral to this course are online cooking labs where the faculty member leads the students through recipes which they cook from their own kitchens.
2. A campus-wide online sustainable cooking series “Cooking with Purpose” (CwP) aimed at food insecure students on our campus to improve literacy about cooking items typically found in our campus food pantries. This voluntary series integrates FEW-nexus topics related to maximizing food system sustainability and human nutrition while students cook from their own kitchens with the instructor and the members of the semester CwP cohort. The next phase of this program will open these classes to alumni and community members who will also benefit from this FEW-nexus education while cooking. These participants will have the opportunity to donate funds to the CwP program to maintain the financially sustainable of the college-student series.
3. In-person and online university, community and public speaking opportunities. These involve live cooking demonstrations as the FEW-nexus topics are presented.
Future plans include the construction of an energy efficient cooking science laboratory and zoom cooking classroom scheduled to be complete in the fall of 2023. Half of this small space will be used for the faculty member and students to be engaged in thermodynamic science research about cooking equipment, including skillets, cooking pots, burner and oven options. The other half will be an online kitchen cooking classroom for interactive Zoom cooking classes as explained above and for other, farther-reaching applications in the future.
The kitchen provides an approachable entry-point for FEW-nexus education and action. Once this foundational knowledge is established, participants are more prepared to become agents of change in other complex, interrelated issues.

Author

• Carla Ramsdell, Appalachian State University