This is an investigative project for students to research specific food borne illnesses in depth and then visually showcase them.  In class we just talk about the food borne illnesses and briefly discuss why they are bad so this lesson goes beyond the discussion.  This also brings technology into the Family & Consumer Science classroom which students love!

Time Frame: 3 – 43 minute periods

Set

• Introduce the food safety lessons with a game that shows how food borne illness can spread and/or a case study scenario.
• Case studies – articles can be found on FoodSafetyNews.com

Materials

Instruction

• This project utilizes the Animoto, a website for making slideshow video presentations. Walk students through signing up for an account. *Note: Students work with the free Animoto segment for this project, however, educational accounts are available for a free trial for 50 students.
• Assign students a (food borne illness) to research.

Activities

• Use in class resources and the internet to fill in the information about your assigned food borne illness (FBI) on the “Most Wanted” form.
• Use the information gathered to create an “Animoto” slide show about your FBI.  It must be 12 slides (30 seconds) in length and include the following:
  • FBI Name
  • Photo(s) of FBI (even if invisible to the naked eye)
  • Hideouts
  • Crimes
  • Prevention

• Provide your email address for students to send their completed Animoto slide shows. Make sure they put their names in the message box so I know who created the Animoto.

Background for Teachers

•  I give students about 3 days (43 min. periods)–one to intro FBI/project and 2 to work on project with a partner.  If you have less time you can always have students work on and/or finish the project at home since all they have to do is log in.
• As far as the content for the Animoto slideshow, students use googled images.  It’s best for students to create a folder to hold the pictures they think they want to use and then access them from there.  Music is right on the Animoto site, the third step. Animoto also has a whole library of songs but students can upload their own too, but may have to do it from home.

Attachments

• FBI-ANIMOTO-PROJECT (Word)

Websites

• Animoto
• FoodSafetyNews.com
• New: Kitchen & Housewares Shop – visit Barnes & Noble.com today!

Similar Lessons

• Be Safe Not Sorry Cartoon
• Foods II Food Borne Illness

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Objective: Identify and apply sanitation rules and guidelines.

Set

• See how much students already know about safety and sanitation by having them fill out the survey.
• Safety & Sanitation Survey (Word)

Materials

Instruction

• Safety & Sanitation PowerPoint Lecture (PPT)
• Safety & Sanitation PowerPoint Notes (Word)

Activities

• Practice hand washing

Evaluation

• Be Safe not Sorry Cartoon assigned for homework
• Quiz

Attachments

• Be Safe Not Sorry Cartoon (Word)
• Kitchen Safety & Sanitation Quiz (Word)

Websites

• Food Safety
• Health Inspector Coach (50 Minute video)

Similar Lessons

• Safe and Sanitary Work Habits – Level I
• Safety Lab

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Reverse engineering packaged foods has been a hobby of mine for a few years now. It is fascinating how “they” come up with these products and to see if I can recreate them to make them taste better in my own kitchen. As many of you know and hopefully have tried by now, Subway came introduced their raspberry cheesecake cookies through a free raspberry cheesecake cookie promotion on Valentine’s Day just a month ago. As soon as I tried it I thought it was excellent and immediately wanted to make them in large quantities at home!

The steps of reverse engineering:

1. Research: find out all you possibly can about the product and about other reproductions out there

• Google search
• Find out what ingredients are in the subway cookie from subway’s nutrition facts:

“RASPBERRY CHEESECAKE Enriched Bleached Flour (Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Sugar, Margarine (Palm Oil, Water, Soybean Oil, Salt, Mono- and Diglycerides, Natural Flavor, Vitamin A Palmitate, Beta Carotene), White Chips (Sugar,Palm Kernel and Palm Oil, Nonfat Dry Milk, Soy Lecithin, Vanilla), Eggs, Raspberry Bits (Dextrose, Palm Oil, Sugar, Corn Flour, Raspberry Powder, Natural Flavor, Citric Acid, Blueberry and Carrot Extracts), Neufchatel Cheese (Pasteurized Milk and Cream, Cheese Culture, Salt, Stabilizer [Carob Bean and/or Guar and/or Xanthan Gums]), Invert Sugar, Maltodextrin, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Baking Soda, Salt, Yellow 5. Contains: Wheat, milk, soybeans and eggs. “

2. Observe & Brainstorm: try to pick out all the ingredients in the product and think of all possible ways that the product could have been made. Also think about how to make the product without special industrial machinery or food chemicals that are not accessible to the general public.

• Cookie base: basic chocolate chip cookie w/o chocolate chips, sugar cookie dough, something else
• Raspberry: jelly, jam, pastry filling, raspberry candy, fresh raspberries
• Cheesecake: an actual cheese cake cut up, cheese cake flavoring, no cheese cake just white chocolate chips

3. Try the most likely solution: look your brainstorming list and pick the most likely solution and try it. Be sure to keep certain variables as controls.

• The first batch: chocolate chip cookie recipe from the back of a Hershey’s bag of chocolate chips with 2 cups of white chocolate, chunked Sara Lee cheesecake (from the frozen section of the grocery store), seedless raspberry jam chopped up.

• The second batch: chocolate chip cookie recipe from the back of a Hershey’s bag of chocolate chips with 2 cups of white chocolate chips, no bake cheese cake powder (Jell-O brand) added to the batter, and seedless raspberry jam chopped up.

• The third batch: chocolate chip cookie recipe from the back of a Hershey’s bag of chocolate chips with 2 cups of white chocolate chips, no bake cheese cake powder added to the batter, and fresh raspberries.

• The fourth batch: chocolate chip cookie recipe from the back of a Hershey’s bag of chocolate chips with 2 cups of white chocolate, chunked Sara Lee cheesecake (from the frozen section of the grocery store), and fresh raspberries.

• The results of all these batches were a cake like cookie that tasted good but where not chewy enough and the cheese cake chunks disappeared in the cookie not adding enough cheese cake flavor.
• Note: The last couple cookies I added the gram cracker crust to the cookies and the taster thought they were much better.

4. Try another solution

• Disappointed with all the batches, I did a search on cream cheese cookies and found that there are cookies made with cream cheese and they look chewy (unlike the cake-like consistency of the ones I made) So, I changed the dough to a basic cream cheese dough then added white chocolate chunks & chips and raspberry jam.

Raspberry Cheesecake Cookie Recipe

Yield 6 dozen

Ingredients

• 1 stick butter, softened
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 8 oz Neufchatel cream cheese
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup white chocolate bar broken into chunks (for appearances & richness)
• 2 1/2 cups white chocolate chips
• Raspberry jam (no seeds) OR King Arthur Flour’s Raspberry Jammy Bits

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350F
• Cream butter, shortening, cream cheese, and sugars until fluffy.
• Add vanilla and eggs one at a time beating well.
• Stir in dry ingredients.
• Stir in white chocolate
• *Add raspberry jam to each cookie (stirring will make the jam gray the dough)
• Using a cookie scoop place cookies 1″ apart on a silapat or greased cookie sheet.
• Bake for 6- 8 minutes. Take out when they are lightly browned- under cook slightly. Let them finish baking on cookie sheet. Then let them cool completely on cooling rack before picking them up.

*Raspberry Jam

• Solution 1: 2 Tbsp of jam + 1Tbsp of cornstarch microwave for 30 seconds. Place in refrigerator immediately to cool. When cooled it should be pliable and you can take some of the sticky raspberry filling and roll them into balls and add to the dough. This is how you don’t turn the dough gray with streaks of raspberry jam throughout. (Probably how Subway does it- some sort of tacky jam product that has the consistency of more of a gummy candy that can be mixed in the dough without changing the dough’s color – then when baked melts into the cookie)
• Solution 2: take some jam out of the jar and place it in a piping back. As soon as the cookies come out of the oven pipe little blobs of jam into the cookie’s crevasses (produces the best looking cookie)
• Solution 3: If you don’t care how the cookies look only taste simply chop your cold jam into small pieces and add to each cookie. Don’t stir them in the batter.
• Solution 4: King Arthur Flour’s Raspberry Jammy Bits as G. Barnhart suggested below
  
• Note 1: Try not to have the raspberry jam touching the bottom of the cookie or it will stick to the pan.

Raspberry Cheesecake Cookie Recipe PDF

5. Modify the Recipe

• Looking at my cookies next to Subway’s there are several things that are still off slightly.
  • One is the color of the cookie. Subway’s raspberry cheese cake cookie is whiter looking than mine. Some possible explanations: I used unbleached flour and dark brown sugar.
  • The second thing that is off slightly is the raspberry jam part. Subway has got to stir in these raspberry jam pieces and just ship the dough to their stores. Although my solution #1 above is close I still wonder what they really do.
  • The third thing that is off is the size of my cookies compared to Subway’s. I used a cookie scoop but if you want them to be larger and more calories be my guest. Just write a comment on this page of how long you baked them for.

Career Connection

• How to become a food scientist
• Food Scientists & Technologists (Occupational Handbook)
• Institute of Food Technologists

Websites

• Grub Grade Food Review of the Cookie
• Brand Eating Review of the Cookie

Similar Reverse Engineering Recipes

• Gummy Candy
• Make your own Cereal Lab

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Course Expectations & Grading Policies

• Culinary II Course Expectations
• Male/Female Interpersonal Relationships Course Expectations
• Restaurant Management Grading Policy
• Child Development Course Expectations

Course Outlines

• Hospitality Course Outline
• Specialty Foods Outline
• American Cuisine
• Culinary I Course Outline
• Culinary II Outline
• Culinary 2 Outline
• Culinary Two Outline
• Culinary Program Overview
• Baking & Pastry Course Outline
• Gourmet Cooking Outline
• Restaurant Management Outline

Curriculum

• 6th Grade FCS
• 7th Grade – FCS
• 8th Grade – FCS
• HS – Career & Life Essentials
• HS – Career Internship
• HS – Child Development
• HS – Culinary Arts
• HS – Foods & Nutrition I
• HS – Foods & Nutrition II
• HS – Healthcare Careers
• HS – Housing & Interior Design
• HS – Human Development
• HS – Scientific Nutrition
• HS – Teacher Cadet
• HS – Textiles, Clothing, & Design

National Standards

• National Standards for Family and Consumer Sciences

HAVE CURRICULUM YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE?

Post a comment below OR send links and/or attachments to: feedback@familyconsumersciences.com and they will be added to the page.

Thanks for contributing to the FACS Library of Courses & Curriculum!

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Time Frame: 1.5hr

Objective

• Dissect the factory process of making gummy candy and modify the process to make them from scratch in your kitchen.
  

Set

• Show a short video on how factories produce gummy candy like the ones shown below.
  
• Gummy Candy Virtual Tour (A Behind the Scenes look at the Black Forest Gummy Factory)
  

Materials

Instruction

• Demonstrate how to make the candies following the recipe listed below. Emphasis working quickly and having all ingredients ready to go (Mis en place).
• Gummy Candy Facts & History
• History of Gummi Candy
• Facts about Gelatin

Activities

• Make Gummy Candy

View Photo Album

• Tip 1: spray molds lightly with cooking spray. Too much cooking spray will make the finished candy taste off- like the flavor of the cooking spray.
• Tip 2: you must work quickly and stir constantly or else the mixture will burn. You also must make sure you heat it long enough (high enough temperature) or else the mixture will not solidify.
• Tip 3: if you’ve watched the videos on how gummy candy is factory made, you know that they use a wax-tumbling process to prevent the gummy candy from melting or sticking together in the bag. Since these candies are homemade if you stick them all in the bag together without the sugar coating the will stick together. I have not yet found a way to incorporate a wax finish into the process. That being said usually students will eat them so fast that they don’t really stay in their bags long anyway.  The sugar/citric acid coating will prevent the candies from sticking if kept in a cool place.

Attachments

• Gummy Worms Recipe (WORD)

Websites

• Make Your Own Gummy Bears Video (A different recipe)
• How to make Gum Drops

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There has been a lot of hype and a nation wide stirring about Fast Food over the past couple years thanks to movies like Super Size Me and Food, Inc.
Most recently Fast Food hit the news again as a photographer startled the world with pictures of “the indestructible happy meal” that looked exactly the same for over six months that it was on her shelf the only difference being that it was hard as a rock. So I ask my students to do a similar experiment decomposing fast food in my classroom window, make their own predictions, take pictures, and finally draw their own conclusions.

Objective

• Students will analyze and evaluate the differences and similarities between two similar fast food items as they decay over the course of a semester.

Set

• Super Size Mevideo- “The Smoking Fry” experiment (found in extras)

Materials

Instructions

Part 1: Prediction Paragraph

• Which item do you predict will decompose the quickest?
• Why do you think so?
• How long will each item take to decompose?

Part 2: Observation Chart

• At least once a week fill out your observation chart when you come to class
• Every week take at least one picture

Part 3: Comparison

• Choose one of the following methods to convey your comparison information:

o       Written

o       Video

o       Poster

• Compare the following:

o       Nutrition Facts (find them on the restaurant’s websites)

o       Size/Weight

o       Portion Size (ex. Number of fries in each)

o       Price

o       Ingredients/Components (ex. 3 pickles on Big Mac; 5 on Five Guys)

• Research the ingredients listed that you don’t know and find out why they are in the product (ex. shelf life, flavor, etc)

o       How appetizing/appealing the food looks right after you order it

o       How do they make or process the foods you chose? (research)

Part 4: Conclusion Paragraph

• What conclusions can you draw from this experiment?
• What did you learn? What is the take away message?
• Which one is healthier? Why do you think so?
• What findings surprised you?
• What are the consequences of eating too much fast food?
• Evaluate the nutrition facts about your item. What does the food guide say about your item?
• What are the RDA’s of some of the nutrients?
• What percentage of the RDA does this food take up?
• What can you conclude about eating this food?

Activity

• Each week students should weigh their fast food items in the container and take a picture of it. Depending on your school’s policy you may let them take pictures with their cell phones.
• Have students present their findings in a formal presentation at the end of the experiment

Background for Teachers

• Containers: send an email out to your the faculty and staff in your school asking for containers. Recycled pickle jars are excellent.
• Keep the food on a shelf in your classroom with the lids on.
• You must let the food breath to enable the food to decay. A couple times a week have the students open the jars briefly. If there are students allergic to mold open the jars outside.
• This experiment did not stink up my classroom as some skeptical students and coworkers thought that it would. There was only one morning that a lid had popped off a jar because of the pressure that was building up inside that is why it is important to open the jars weekly.
• You can also do this experiment with prepackaged things like cookies, Pop Tarts, Twinkies, Swiss Rolls, etc.

I decided to do this experiment along with my students but decaying a Pop tart and Twinkie. Three months into it they still smelled as fresh as the day I opened them! The apple pies in this picture didn't decay too fast either. The Burger King slice of pie has yet to mold even though it lost a lot of water (condensation) the first month.

Extensions

• Team up with a biology teacher to analyze the different molds under the microscope.
• Mold Identification
• Food Mold

Closure

• Why did some foods decay more than others?
• Would the food decay any faster if it was just left out on the counter (no container)?
• If cooked food kills pathogens why does food grow mold?

Attachments

• Fast Food Fanatic Instructions and Observation Chart (Word)

Websites

• Carcinogen found in Fast Food Grilled Chicken
• Carcinogen found in French Fries
• Fast Food Made Almost Entirely from Corn
• Fast Food Chicken Experiment
• Fast Food Project
• McDonald’s Happy Meal Experiment
• What’s Really Fast Food?

Pictures

Similar Lesson Plans

• Fast Food Comparison
• Fast Food Fun
• Fast Food Frenzy

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Help your students get a jump start in the restaurant industry by having them become ServSafe certified! To do this you can either have a ServSafe instructor come and teach your class or you can become a certified instructor.

1. To become an instructor you need to be a ServSafe certified manager first. To do this you simply need to take a class and pass the test.
2. After you have been working as a ServSafe certified manager you can start the process of becoming an instructor/proctor.
3. To become an instructor there is an online test that you complete at your own pace. The difference between the manager’s course and the instructor’s course is that the instructor has to know the how’s and why’s behind the regulations. The test is online and you can stop the test and go back later. The answers are not easy to find and require asking professionals or reading food law/codes.
4. Once you have passed the online Advanced test you have to go through a presentation on what it means to become a dual role instructor/proctor. There are periodic quizzes throughout the presentation that you have to pass.
5. The final step is to submit an application. The application asks why you want to become certified and requires professional experience.

Helpful resources for the Instructor’s Advanced Online Test

• All about Sanitizing
• Backflow
• Calibrating a Thermometer
• How Bimetallic Thermometers Work
• Proper Broom Storage
• Resuming Business After a Flood
• Thermometer Information
• Water Activity in Bread
• Water Activity in Food and Why they Spoil

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Time Frame:  2.5  hours

Objective

• To inform students about where their food comes from; discuss and implement personal solutions to these shocking truths about what we eat, how it’s produced and who we have become as a nation.

Set

• Is the food that we eat safe?
• How many of you know where your hamburger comes from?
• Who buys produce at our local grocery store? Do you know where it comes from?
• Is where your food comes from important?
• What are the risks involved with producing mass quantities of food?

Activities

• Watch Food Inc. (DVD) 91 minutes

• Class discussion using either the discussion guide or participant book listed below.

Attachments

• For a free discussion guide to use in your classroom created by The Center of Ecoliteracy,  download here (PDF).
• Food Inc.: A Participant Guide: How Industrial Food is Making Us Sicker, Fatter, and Poorer-And What You Can Do About It

Websites

• Food Inc.

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Science Behind Yeast

• Sourdough: Starting Something Wild
• A Swell Lab: Yeast Fermentation

There’s cake, instant, active, and rapid yeast available which one should I use?

How do you know yeast dough is kneaded enough? Pulling a Window Pane

Yeast Breads Lesson Plans

• Bread from Start to Finish
• Bread in a Bag
• Breads and Other Cultures
• Investigating Bread Fungi & Mold
• Preparing Yeast Breads
• Speedy Breads Using New Techniques
• Wheat for Kids
• Yeast Bread Pretzel Lab
• Yeast Breads- Refrigerator Rolls
• Yeast Fermentation in the Classroom

Yeasty Recipes

• King Arthur Flour Recipes

Yeast Breads Reference Books

Yeast Bread Ingredients

Yeast Bread Links

• Bread Trouble Shooting
• CIA: Podcast- Bread and Baker
• Sourdough Primer

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Save money and boost nutrition through a school yard garden, part of national trend to focus on eating local, whole foods.  “Slow Food is an idea, a way of living and a way of eating. It is a global, grassroots movement with thousands of members around the world that links the pleasure of food with a commitment to community and the environment.” Programs like Slow Food in Schools provide grants ranging from $500-$10,000 to start a program in your school district. There are many different projects that you can customize or create for your school’s individual needs. Some of the projects suggested in the How to Start a Slow Food in Schools Project include contracting local farms to provide local produce to your school’s cafeterias, community gardens, school yard gardens, cooking classes and taste education, farmers market field trips, and farm tours. To read the stories of actual schools across the country that have participated in the Slow Food in Schools programs follow click here.

For those of you who teach, attend, or have connections with a local university, check out Slow Food on Campus, a similar program for colleges.

In addition to teaching our students about where food comes from, for FACS teachers,  a school yard garden means fresh produce and lower grocery bills –a definite plus.

Pros:

• Nutrient dense foods to feed students
• Cheaper foods
• Potential to change the mindset of an entire community towards eating local
• Lots of opportunity for student learning
• Can be a school wide project….not all on your shoulders
• Establish a fund raising outlet by selling the produce grown in the school garden to the community

Cons:

• It takes effort
• One more thing to do
• Start up costs
• Jumping political hurdles to acquire the space and permission
• Learning curve
• Living in colder states creates more challenges

Questions to ask yourself before taking on a school yard garden:

1. Where is my gardening experience level?  Do I need more skills or help to be successful?
   • If you’ve been gardening all your life and have a significant garden yourself you’re probably all set. But what about those of us that have little to no experience growing fruits and vegetables? The best thing you can do is get help from other faculty that have more experience, befriend and/or join master gardeners, and contact your local extension agent who is funded with tax dollars to help us with these types of things!
2. Am I willing to start a substantial project that may mean keeping it going through the summer?
   • Unless you plan on taking the most fruitful season off….you must keep your garden going when schools not in session. My suggestion is to get reliable help for the summer months (refer to question 3).
3. Do I have people that will help me or am I a lone ranger?
   • Finding enough student and adult help is crucial to maintaining the garden year round. Some ways to do this are make the garden a club project or requiring a certain class or classes to maintain it. For example if it is a garden to use for culinary class have your culinary students maintain it. Besides culinary classes, you can pretty much make the school yard garden fit into your other courses as well. For instance if you have a child development preschool you can have the little kids plant seeds with the high school helpers. If you teach life skills you can incorporate a unit in buying food starting with the garden, going to local farmers markets, along with meal planning and grocery shopping.
   • If desperate for help you could make it more of a community garden asking boy scouts, girl scouts, 4-Hers, etc.  to help take care of it periodically.
4. Do I live in a school conducive to gardens or does my location present challenges?
   • For those of you who teach in the city gardening can present more of a challenge. The picture above is an urban garden created by Johnson and Wales in Charlotte, North Carolina. As you can see from the pictures they plant everything in buckets (recycled food service buckets) because all they have is a cement slab. They also compost all their food scraps to create the dirt for the plants. Besides the plants, in this cement slab compound, they also installed several holding tanks to collect rain water.
   • If you live in states that are colder for most of the school year there are several options. My school grows herbs in the window boxes. There also is the option of purchasing or building a green house.

Other resources that are challenging our nation’s way of growing food:

• Make a Mini Green House from a CD Case
• Rethinking School Lunch Guide
• Farm to Table Curriculum
• French Fries and the Food System: A Year Round Curriculum Connecting Youth with Farming and Food
• Fundamentals of Organic Farming & Gardening Instructors Guide - Free 8 unit curriculum!

Articles

• Feeding Kids the Right Food and Inspiring them to Eat it

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