NASA Food in Space DVD
Class: Year 7 Food Technology
Teacher: Jacquey Neilson
School: Bush Schools' Technology Centre
Category: Resource/Context
The context
How astronauts go to the toilet in space isn't usually part of a Food Technology lesson, but as an example of inputs and outputs it certainly grabs the attention of the average eleven year-old!
The activity
Jacquey Neilson showed her class 'Food in Space' as an introduction to their 'Space Food' unit The students could immediately understand how specialised this food is – that in a space environment it needs to be easy to actually get food and drink into the mouth, and that crumbs will hang around and are a potential hazard to space craft equipment.
"It was brilliant," said Jacquey. "It hooked them straight into it".
The class then went on to discuss food preservation, in the past and the present, and were able to use the knowledge they had gained from the DVD and apply it to different situations.
Students looked at a range of preserved food and analysed the contents of a NASA 'snack pack' (obtained from a commercial website). This provided a good example of the importance of packaging and how it differs according to the particular location/requirements of the food.
The NASA educational website pages offer information, articles and teaching materials for Years 1 – 13, a selection of which is particularly helpful for Food Technology.
DVD: 'Food in Space', 2007, ArcherArrow Media LLC, United States of America
Websites:
www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators
www.thespacestore.com
RSS Feed
