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PUBLICATION INFORMATION

TITLE OF PUBLICATION
CHEMISTRY AND COOKING: FROM CONTEXT TO BUILDING MODELS.
NAME OF AUTHOR(S)
Mª Ruth Jiménez-Liso,Rafael López-Gay, Mª Macarena Márquez.
NAME OF PUBLISHER
Revista Alambique. Didáctica de las ciencias experimentales.
YEAR OF PUBLICATION
2010
LANGUAGE OF PUBLICATION
Spanish
PUBLICATION TYPOLOGY
Research
TARGET GROUP OF PUBLICATION
Researchers, Teachers
SIZE OF THE PUBLICATION
Over 10 pages
DESCRIPTION OF CONTENTS
Using kitchens as household laboratories is one of the most widely used resources
in class in order to connect chemistry with everyday life, by carrying
out activities such as preparing recipes, using food or cleaning products as reagents,
etc. This article looks at the advantages of using chemical phenomena
in cooking to go beyond increasing students’ observational field and offering
opportunities to use models to help explain the phenomena observed and make
predictions. We also describe a proposal for first-year secondary students
in which students not only observe, but also increase their ability to explain
what happened using an historical acid-base model.
PDF OF THE PUBLICATION
NAME OF THE REVIEWING ORGANISATION
CECE

Comments about this Publication

Your comments are welcome


Date: 2014.06.03

Posted by Antonio J. Torres Gil (España)

Message: Evidence shows that contextual science-based approach is one that more successes harvested in the science of our students learning. Use of the kitchen as a laboratory and experiences related to everyday chemicals are another example of how the chemistry of everyday life to our classrooms can be.
In this article the authors analyze chemical activities carried out in teaching conferences and science fairs, activities that could serve as reference to chemistry teachers who want to give a more practical classes. However, not enough authors to these activities. They suggest the construction of school models that predict and explain the experiences carried out.
I believe this item by combining the motivational aspect of the experiences with the work from explanatory models of phenomena.

Date: 2014.05.15

Posted by José Luis Cañavate (Spain)

Message: I agree that the kitchen is a good place to observe physical and chemical processes, of course many of them complex, but it is true that often arises the difficulty of not being able to see in situ the situation that we have chosen to complement the explanation being performed at the time and is very important modeling process. But this is the moment in which the imagination of the teacher should be a important factor. We have to look for a consistent graphical representation and it must be accessible for students can represent the process through the model proposed by the teacher.

Date: 2014.05.14

Posted by Antonio Guardia Cabrera (Spain)

Message: The idea of using kitchens as household laboratories is a widely known resource that let the teachers connect chemistry with everyday life.

Chemistry is used in everyday life, but many people do not recognize the chemistry aspect. People tend to think that chemistry is only used in school and in labs by scientists and doctors. Chemistry is all around us and the kitchen is a great place to study science. Cooking involves chemical reactions that combine molecules in a mixture, or change them through chemical reactions. We use it in the kitchen while cooking and it explains how food changes. The authors focus their effort in the importance of searching the most relevant demonstrations to offer opportunities in order to use models that let them explain the phenomena observed. Students are encouraged to observe science in everyday life and draw these images \"on pictures\".

This kind of chemical demonstrations can be a useful teaching tool to capture student interest and develop understandings of science.

Date: 2014.05.14

Posted by José Ángel Ruiz García (Spain)

Message: I found this article very interesting because it deepens into the aim of bringing the teaching of chemistry and its applications to current generations, with the intention of increasing interest and open perspectives not foreseen if a more traditional learning model is put into practice.

The text focuses on a very topical application, as it is the field of traditional cuisine, and especially the most innovative and cutting edge, as a way to exploit the chemistry applications and bring it closer to the multiple uses that imagination can be extracted.

But the most interesting is that the text is not in an original and innovative idea, but presents how to take it to the practice of a pedagogical and structured, viable way from the educational point of view, through the use of models. Using models you can extrapolate to other contexts an experience that has been conducted, and predict the outcome in other experiments and applications. In short,is the way of working creatively and how to apply the knowledge acquired in other applications.I believe that strategies as described are important to approach the world of chemistry to everyday life, at the time that can stimulate the attraction and outreach to new generations of students.

Date: 2014.04.07

Posted by Inforef (Belgium)

Message: This publication is relevant to the project as it addresses motivation using chemistry in everyday life, namely the chemistry of cooking. It also shows students chemistry is everywhere (or all around us, if you want), and not only in what we commonly called “chemicals”. The importance of putting chemistry in a familiar context was often reminded during the first year of the project, and it is tempting to use the kitchen as a laboratory for financial (the reagents are cheap) and motivational (it is fun) reasons. However, this article goes further, showing that everyday life phenomena such as those occurring in cooking can involve complex scientific contents, and a wrong choice could therefore be counterproductive since students would be unable to explain what is happening. The article suggests the experiments should be selected according to the models that can be applied to explain them. The model should be accessible to the students’ level and help them, not only to explain the phenomenon, but also to predict it.

Date: 2014.04.03

Posted by Mária Fabianová (Slovakia)

Message: Publication shows good educational practices that shows students what chemistry is and to realize that chemistry is all around us: in the kitchen, and in the household and everywhere. Basically it is about how to motivate students to be more incuisitive what do they eat and what chemistry is. Inspriration is from Jiménez-Liso and de Manuel (2009), which work reports aabout successful experience with first-year secondary students, with the objective of taking the empirical contributions from the culinary experiences of students, to the field of reflection about chemistry and how it is present in our everyday life. The publication describes how to make the teaching more interactive, what means that students not only observe, but also have to explain what is happening, what is the context of the experiment. For that reason, they use worksheets for every experiment. My opinion is that this publication is relavant and suitable for the Chemistry is all around us-network project.

Date: 2014.04.02

Posted by Claire Mc Donnell (Ireland)

Message: This paper presents an interesting approach to facilitating students in first year of secondary school to develop models that allow them to explain what is happening in acid-base reactions. The acid-base reactions selected use kitchen ingredients to provide a familiar context. The authors begin by making the excellent point that, although it is helpful to use examples of chemistry in the kitchen to relate concepts to relevant examples, many processes that take place in a kitchen involve phenomena that are too complex for learners in early secondary school. They provide a very useful table that lists 25 “everyday chemistry” projects that involve food and then go on to explain that they selected the use of an acid-base indicator prepared from red cabbage extract because it involves the correct balance of scientific content and context.

The importance of developing models that allow observable phenomena to be explained is explored and relevant supporting literature is cited. An additional feature of the approach described is that a historical interpretation of acid-base reactions developed by Lemery was selected for use as a suitable model to allow the students to explain and predict the processes they will study. This model proposes that acids and bases differ in the shape of their atoms and is applied very effectively to allow students to explain and predict a series of observations.
In the study, the following processes were examined by students;
1. Reaction of vinegar and sodium bicarbonate and the inflation of a balloon with the resulting gas produced,
2. Use of broth and cabbage indicator to determine if a range of food and cleaning products were acids or bases,
3. Addition of some deionised water to some vinegar and indicator,
4. Addition of some ammonia to vinegar and indicator gradually to change the solution to neutral and then to basic.

Students were asked to draw the system before and after the materials were mixed for stages 1, 3 and 4. Examples of these drawings are provided and discussed and those produced for stages 3 and 4 are particularly impressive.
This is a practice-based paper that describes a successful initiative to develop deep understanding of acid-base properties with first year secondary school students. The rationale for the approach used is clearly explained and shows evidence of careful consideration of this problem. The selection of the historical Lemery model as a means to facilitate learners to explain and predict acid-base behaviour is impressive and I would expect that teachers of students at this stage would be interested in implementing it.

Date: 2014.03.18

Posted by Elisete Afonso (Portugal)

Message: This article is of great importance because it addresses a motivating strategy for the exploration of chemical phenomena starting from the kitchen, converting it into a home lab.
Inspired by daily scenarios, materials and events, collected by Jiménez-Liso and de Manuel (2009)[1], this work reports a successful experience with first-year secondary students, with the objective of taking the empirical contributions from the culinary experiences of students, to the field of reflection about chemistry and how it is present in our everyday life, setting up a methodological grant.
The reported experience is based on an attractive pedagogical strategy to approximate experimental sciences to the educational contexts, minimizing the difficulties of understanding some chemical phenomena. Thus, starting from their observation, it’s possible to discuss and work for modeling, based on the reasoning found for the explanation of phenomena in everyday life.
The purpose is to motivate younger students using more recreational activities and relegate the explanation of the observed phenomena to students from higher levels.
However, the selection of contexts to be worked with students should not be overlooked, because it is intended, not only to find explanations for the observable, but also lead students to predict what may occur in other conditions and thus extrapolate their motivation to other situations.
A number of activities of daily chemistry are presented in this article, aiming to motivate students to learn chemical transformations through acid-base processes and conclude, among the observable phenomena, which ones may be considered relevant facts, capable of building a model.
Using this methodology, the explanatory ability of students is requested, in which they highlight the changes suffered through graphic representations of before and after applying the model, whether with the same phenomena or different ones.

[1] JIMÉNEZ-LISO, M.R.; DE MANUEL, E. (2009): «El regreso de la química cotidiana: regresión o innovación?». Enseñanza de las Ciencias, vol. 27(2), pp. 257–272.

Date: 2014.03.16

Posted by Panagiotis Charizanos (Greece)

Message: This article offers suggestions of good educational practices that indeed “challenge” students to be more aware about what chemistry is and to realize that chemistry is all around us: in the kitchen, and in the household, everywhere. It shows that chemistry is an everyday issue and this is the main reason it is closely relevant to the project. Furthermore, from the educational point of view, this article looks at the advantages of using chemical phenomena that occur in cooking in order to go beyond increasing students’ observational field but also to offer opportunities to use models to help explain the phenomena observed and make predictions.
The issue of financial cost is critical and from this point of view, the design of experiments with cheap materials that students can bring from home is a good initial starting point. The publication describes how to make the lectures more interactive. First of all, students not only observe, but also have to explain what is happening, what is the context of the experiment. For that reason, they use worksheets for every experiment. The publication does not deal on the issue of incorporating ICT teaching tools in the teaching practice. Nevertheless, it is quite useful and closely related with the network’s general aims.

Date: 2014.01.13

Posted by Hana Svobodova (Czech Republic)

Message: 1) Which kinds of successful experiences does the publication describe?
The article Chemistry and cooking describes an idea how to motivate students to be more incuisitive what do they eat and what chemistry is.
2) Why is this publication relevant?
This publication is relevant because it shows that chemistry is all around us - for example in the kitchen.
3) Does the publication present most effective solution to overcome barriers?
Yes, it does. Financial resources are insufficient, school experiments are decreasing. Home experiments shows how to overcome this barriers.
4) Does the publication present the new teaching methodologies?
It describes how to make the lectures more interactive. Students do not only observe, they learn how to explain what happend. They use workhsheets for that. It would be nice to make the worksheet more colorful and add some formulas of chemical compounds.
In my opinion, the article is relavant and suitable for the Chemistry is all around us-network project.

National Reports on successful experiences to promote lifelong learning for chemistry The national reports on chemistry successful experiences to promote lifelong learning for chemistry are now available on the related section of the project portal. The reports presents examples of successful experiences in the partner countries and the results of testing of ICT resources with science teachers.

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