PROJECT DESCRIPTION: In this project we explored the science behind cooking. We investigated lipids, carbohydrates, and gluten as well as how to conduct a reliable experiment. When we had gone through the basics of chemistry that go into the cooking people do on a daily basis, we each chose a food that we would center our chemistry experiment around. I chose to make rollup pancakes. For the experiment, we chose one ingredient of the food that we wanted to manipulate (independent variable) in order to measure a change in the product (dependent variable). For my experiment I decided to change the type of flour, specifically with the intent to manipulate the gluten content of the flour, to see how it affected the flexibility of the pancake. After I completed my cooking experiment, I created a recipe card that outlined the food I made, why I chose that food, and the results of my experiment.
REFLECTION: How did your cooking process transform your food macroscopically and affect the food’s overall characteristics? In my experiment, the gluten content of the flour directly affected the flexibility of the pancakes. I decided to use four different types of flour: coconut flour, gluten free flour, whole wheat flour, and bread flour. These flours ranged from no gluten to a high gluten content which enabled me to see how much the gluten content of the flour affected the texture. When pancake batter is made, two proteins called gliadin and glutenin react with water to form gluten. The longer glutenin molecules wrap around the smaller gliadin molecules and create a sticky, stretchy web. Where more of the two proteins are present, more gluten will form. When I used bread flour, the gluten content of the flour was too high. This meant that so much gluten formed that the gluten web became dense. This resulted in the pancakes being thick, tough, and inflexible. The whole wheat flour, which had a good amount of gluten, resulted in pancakes that stuck together but were still thin and flexible. In comparing just these, less gluten was better. However, this was not true for the pancakes with no gluten. In the coconut flour, the two proteins gliadin and glutenin were not present and the result was pancakes that could barely stick together. Without the mesh of gluten holding it together, the pancakes broke easily. This showed that gluten content, or type of flour, that is in pancakes has a direct effect on their texture and elasticity.
In what way(s) are cooking and doing science similar and in what way(s) are they different? How are a cook and a food scientist similar or different? Through this project I was able to realize just how much chemistry I encounter in my everyday life. Chemistry is not just done in a lab, but in the kitchen too. When a cook prepares to cook a meal, the steps, requirements, and strategies are very similar to a chemist conducting an experiment. Each needs a list of exact materials/ingredients, a recipe, and a process to follow. Usually, these exact measurements and procedures create the expected result, but in both cooking and chemistry, there is an element of uncertainty. Sometimes unseen obstacles affect the outcome in unexpected ways. Both cooks and scientists learn from these experiences and improve their work based on them. However, there are some differences. Scientists often dive deep into the atomic and molecular identities of the substances they are dealing with. Cooks usually are not looking as deeply into their ingredients. Food scientists are probably doing a lot of the work of learning more deeply about the makeup of the foods they are dealing with, but there still is the truth that the processes that they follow differ from what a chemist would follow for their experiments. Being asked to experiment with food was very eye opening because it showed me how much science and cooking can overlap.
SARS-CoV-2 Chemistry Project
PROJECT OVERVIEW: For this project, I decided to participate in a structured academic discussion in front of the AHS school board. Our conversation was focused around the question "Should schools return to in-person after Winter Break?" Each student who participated in this assumed the role of one of the 'stakeholders' of this discussion. For example, a representative of San Juan Basin Health, a principle, a parent, and an air filtration specialist were just a few of the roles that students chose. I represented the opinions of teachers. In order to prepare for the discussion, we each wrote a two page position write up:
REFLECTION: Respond to the essential question, "How can the lens of chemistry be used to inform societal practice and policy designed to limit the spread of SARS-CoV-2?" At the end of your answer, describe what beliefs (if any) you held at the beginning of the semester in relation to that Essential Question and how your understanding related to the Essential Question grew as a result of the work you did in this course. The question “How can the lens of chemistry be used to inform societal practice and policy designed to limit the spread of SARS-CoV-2?” turns out to have a complex answer. As we have seen since the beginning of the global pandemic, our country has had to greatly modify social practices in an effort to limit the spread of the SARS-Cov-2 virus. These decisions were almost all based around scientific evidence and knowledge of the virus itself. When the government began issuing statewide and national mandates, they had to be familiar with the properties of the virus itself as well as its transmission mechanisms in order to create policies that were actually effective. For example, once the possibility of airborne transmission was possible/probable, mandates were issued that everyone was required to wear a facial covering in public. This is because the virus can be transmitted in droplets created from someone speaking that are small enough to travel to another person who is unprotected. Without integrating science into those decisions, our country would probably have many more issues with large populations of infected people. On a personal level, the lens of science also effected how a lot of people choose to change their own interaction with their community. Many people took the time to look at the pandemic from a scientific standpoint in order to help them decide which type of mask they wanted to use and how many people they wanted to see regularly in enclosed spaces. This led to things like them choosing certain materials for homemade masks that had been shown to have a high enough thread count to contain most of the droplets one produces when they talk or even cough. Although not everyone did this, those who did were able to determine the safest way to navigate their social interactions with the threat of the virus. Before I started really looking into this issue, I was not aware of the extent to which science informs many of our social practices. As the pandemic worsened, I finally started to see the more clear links between science and the ways that we choose to run our society. When I began research, I saw that it grew even more complex because even if you were very informed on the scientific dangers of the virus, there were points at which you had to choose to make sacrifices. For example, it was discovered early on that the virus spreads better in enclosed spaces, but schools still re-opened for some time with students being inside in classrooms in order to protect students’ mental health. This made me realize that it is hard to create a social policy that fits the exact needs to be scientifically safe because there are so many other things involved in the decision.
How did your knowledge of science grow through your work on the project? The academic discussion that I participated in with a group of my peers greatly deepened my understanding of the important ties between science and social life. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic that our world is experiencing is bringing out a lot of difficult questions that our society has to answer. Through this project and discussion I saw how many of the answers to these questions are a mix of science and social solutions that come together. For example, when we learned about the efficiency of masks earlier on in the project, the lens of science pointed to the fact that they were one of the best ways to protect a person from the virus. However, as we began inspecting the social side of the issue, I began to see how decisions had to be made of who would get the best masks, how people can be provided with masks, and how someone can create a cheaper but less effective alternative that would work based on the person’s surroundings. For example, healthcare workers were provided with the best masks first because they had the most contact with the virus and then they were spread to other people who were considered most at risk like educators teaching in person. Once the knowledge of the scientific facts and social issues were brought together, our society was able to create solutions that worked. I think that our driving question for our debate was much like this issue and thus furthered my knowledge of what goes into this kind of science/society hybrid solution.
Please evaluate the pedagogical decisions made around the content taught this semester and state whether you believe the benefits of this method outweigh the downsides or not. I thought that us learning about the SARS-CoV-2 virus was interesting because it is very relevant in our lives right now. We were able to learn a lot of different concepts while sticking to the topic, although I feel that I would have liked to go more in depth into chemistry topics. As someone who hasn’t ever learned a lot about chemistry before, I would have been interested in diving deeper into some of the topics we just touched on. I didn’t find it hard to connect all of the content to the final project even though we were learning online and there was less time for the whole curriculum to be taught. I was disappointed that we did not get to participate in labs because I feel this would have bettered my understanding of many chemistry concepts. Overall, I still feel that I have learned a good amount of chemistry and I appreciated being able to connect it to things going on in our lives. I feel that this method of teaching was helpful and the downsides are outweighed overall by the positives that came from it.