The Chemical Kitchen: Learning Across Disciplines Seminar

It has been developed as an Active Learning Pedagogy Transformation project, funded through the College's new Learning and Teaching Strategy. The Chemical Kitchen provides learning across disciplines, where a non-threatening, parallel, and inclusive learning environment is rooted in the strong overlap between the skills and attributes needed by professionals both in science and gastronomy. We have developed a novel practical course for first year chemistry undergraduates in which groups of 15 students work in a hybrid kitchen-lab environment over three sessions prior to conducting their first synthetic chemistry experiment.
Learners practice 'mise-en-place' as they plan and organize their sessions, working collaboratively in teams to assemble creative dishes. The preparation of the components of each dish requires meticulous craftsmanship, time management, safe working, close noticing, and detailed record keeping. Students use electronic lab notebooks to capture their experiments and have on-demand access to video tutorials to guide them through new techniques. Learners have the flexibility and choice to allow their unique experiences and creativity to inform the design of their dishes and experiments, contributing to an inclusive learning environment. In this talk, we describe the developed learning activities and reflect on the experience of the first cohort of students who took the course in winter 2019.

Further information visit the Chemical Kitchen Website