Duration: 2:28
Teacher, Virginia Kung, explains why she chose to teach her students about the science of bread and how they got the community involved.
Student: One day for our experiment, we came in and Mrs Kung told us that we were doing a bread experiment, so that was pretty cool. We tried some stuff out. What happened was we had yeast and we put cold water in one and hot in the other and we put sugar and other ingredients to see what happened.
Virginia Kung: The reason I chose the yeast and making bread was because that was something that was of interest to the children in terms of the science element, but at the same time, it was also about making connections with our families, and about their culture identity. So for me, I started off talking about my own culture and how bread is like a staple diet in many of our cultures and the types of bread in the Chinese culture. But then also we talked about coconut bread and the other cultures and how it was important to them and the things we put in. This is where we involved the parents.
Student: We invited our parents to help out with the baking because we wanted to share the culture and they shared a little bit of their culture into the bread.
Virginia Kung: Then the parents came along to help us make bread after we’d talked about that whole process of yeast and how it ferments and the proofing, things we put into it and the ingredients was a mixture of what the whole group wanted to put in.
Student: It felt like it was all of our recipe and that we shared it as one.
Virginia Kung: Yeah and that in itself was a learning process and something they reflected on that they enjoyed and part of something that we then put into our newsletter to share with all our other families. So it was again, building on those connections and also our families and relationships.
Student: After we made the bread and ate it, and gave some to our teachers and our parents, Dr Kofoed decided to put it into the newsletter for everybody to enjoy and make this yummy recipe of this bread.
Virginia Kung: For our children too, I think it makes them proud to see their parents being here and being part of it because it’s all part of the learning together.
Student: It felt really special because cultures together, that was a very important moment for me in my life.