Final Blog Post

I learned a lot from my 20% project. My 20% project focused on the importance of teaching children how to cook. In my Weebly website, I categorized the importance into four major groups.

1) The Importance of Cooking: Cooking is a great opportunity for eduction because it encourages learning. It requires reading, measurement, and following directions. Cooking also teaches healthy eating habits, which is what my 20% project primarily focused on. Having children participate with cooking and choosing to make healthier food options will give them the proper education towards food which will help them for the rest of their lives. Cooking also teaches hygiene and food safety to children. Before cooking, it is essential to wash hands especially when cooking with meats. Children learn about food safety so they know that the food they are cooking will not get others sick. Cooking also educates children about hazards in the kitchen. Children that spend time cooking with hot items will allow them to become successful cooks as adults.

2) If I were to integrate cooking into my classroom, my program would be similar to that of Kids Culinary Arts located in New Hampshire. The program gets kids in the kitchen to teach them to make healthy food. Kids not only have a great time, but they learn the importance of making healthy food over bad food. I believe that children will want to eat the food they create, so why not make their recipes healthy?

3) There are also numerous psychological effects of eating and cooking together as a family. I know personally my life would be different if I did not eat together with my family every night. On psychologytoday.com, they state that a child has much better eating habits if he/she eats with their family at least five nights a week. Eating as a family also helps the problem of childhood obesity. If a child is eating at the dinner table, their portions are controlled, they eat slower, and they are less like to "eat on the run," and not eat fast food.

4) Cooking integrated into the classroom only has positive benefits for children. It has been said that children's grades raise in their other classes from cooking classes. Cooking is a hands on activity that incorporates things learned in the classroom like science, reading, and social skills.

FINAL PRODUCT OF 20% PROJECT

Even though I am technologically challenged, the website creator Weebly was quite simple for me to use. It is connected with my 20% project because I made it easy to use for teachers and students. I also made it kid friendly with bright colors and a lot of pictures. In my weebly site, I even included a simple, fun recipe teachers can incorporate with students in the classroom.

The difficulties I had were my fear of technology. I was stressed to make a final product that I could compare with my peers, since I am bad at using new applications and softwares. But in the end, my peers were really impressed with my final product and my subject in general. Everyone who visited my product at the final showcase seemed very intrigued with my work, which gave me confidence and broke my fear of creating websites.

Progress Check

Progress Check

I've been learning a lot about enhancing the youth through cooking. I've been focusing my research on how cooking helps children in planning, making decisions, solving problems, and leading others. Cooking and learning about healthy food options is vital to a child's development to prevent from obesity and other health problems. I need to know more about specific teaching mechanism to help children enjoy cooking more. I would perhaps like to create lesson plans about teaching children how to cook, the importance of eating healthy, and focusing around eating with family. I believe that cooking brings out creativity in children, they can experiment with foods they like, and it also makes them feel independent and mature.

Target Audience

Teachers, most likely teaching classes targeted around health, will benefit from my 20% project the most. I want to try and create lesson plans surrounded my teaching children how to cook. I would focus the lesson plans with easy recipes that are simply to compile in the classroom with minimal recipes. My 20% project could also be benefitted from children to learn the benefits of cooking and healthy eating. Students who are over weight would probably benefit from reading my project to learn the importances of eating healthy. The information in my project will also focus around healthy recipes and the importance of living a healthy lifestyle over a non healthy one.

Product

As stated before, I think lesson plans are the best way to relay information to my target audience, teachers.  I think a google site is the best mode to deliver my information. I am not very good with technology, and a google site is easy to compile, and I can attach videos and links to the site easily. Google site's is also a nice way to organize and make any project look professional. My website is going to look youthful, since children will be viewing the site. I will deliver my project with lesson plans, you tube videos, and websites to education children and teachers about cooking and healthy eating.

Psychological Effects of Eating/Cooking Together as a Family

The Family that Eats Together Stays Together 

Since I've started my 20% project, I have been thinking about certain aspects of cooking I could dive into and start researching. After reading comments left by my peers, I decided to delve into the psychological effects of eating and cooking together as a family. I know that my life would be different if I did not sit with my family at dinner every night, and I wanted to learn if there were any psychological benefits to this as well. On PsychologyToday.com I found an article "The Family that Eats Together, Stays Together," which taught me a lot. Research shows that families who share four or five meals together each week have kids who eat more fruits and vegetables, have healthier eating habits in general, and are at less risk for obesity. Before reading this article, I never realized how much eating as a family can effect healthy eating habits as well as bonding as a family. The article also discussed how eating "on the run" increased the risk of childhood obesity and could develop poor eating habits. The article also goes on to say that eating "on the run" could also lead to eating disorders in the future, and that most people with bulimia hardly ever sat down at a table to enjoy a meal. An additional benefit to a sit down dinner with children is an opportunity to catch-up with kids and find out whats going on in their lives. The article recommends to ask children open ended questions so it does not seem like you are bantering them.

In continuing my research, I was to learn ways to let children know how important it is to eat as a family. I know when I was a child I just wanted to eat a quick dinner and go play, or eat in front of the television. Now that I am older and have read this article, I know now that eating as a family not only will help me in the long run with my eating habits, but also psychologically. 

Beginning my Research

What would be the best way to teach cooking to young students? Would technology make it easier or harder?

I first started my research by researching cooking programs for children. I found this youtube video about an organization called Kids Culinary Arts. Kids Culinary Arts started because many schools arts program's have been dropped, and to help the child obesity problem in the country. The program gets kids in the kitchen and teach them to make healthy food. While kids are cooking in the program, they are not only having fun, but also are planning, making decisions, solving problems, and leading others. It also helps with their reading, science, social studies, and health.

 After watching the video, I realized even more how pivotal cooking is for children's lives. Child obesity is a major problem int he United States presently. One way I could help that is by teaching elementary school children how to cook healthy. Once children realize how fun it is to cook healthy food, they will go home and tell their parents what they ate. Also, children will feel better by eating the health food instead of bad food. Kids Culinary Arts does exactly what I want to teach to my kids. The organization has the same motives I want to teach my kids. I want to teach my kids that cooking is fun. They will not even notice what they are eating is healthy because they will have so much fun while cooking. I need to complete further research on ways to make cooking fun, and what healthy recipres would be the most beneficial for them.

Watch the video to see what Kids Culinary Arts is about!

HEALTHY COOKING FOR KIDS 

Why Cooking?

When we were assigned to choose a topic for our 20% project, I had some difficulty deciding on a topic. Then after class I went home, and made myself a chopped salad. I grabbed vegetables in the fridge and started chopping them. As I was chopping, I was thinking what I could do with these veggies to incorporate them in my dinner. Then I was instantly struck with an idea for my project, my love for cooking. I have really enjoyed cooking since I have moved off campus 3 years ago. I especially love cooking with my mom and for other people. I taught my roommate everything I know about cooking, and now she loves it as much as I do. Once a week, one of my roommates cook for all of us, its a great way for all of us to get together, and to eat a healthy meal. I want to incorporate cooking and teaching into my 20% project. I think cooking and sitting around the dinner table and talking is really important, and I would love to teach children that. I love believe that cooking is important because it is a lot healthier than eating out. When you are cooking, you know every ingredient going into your recipe, while when you eat at a restaurant you do not know what exactly you are eating. I think its vital for children to learn about what they are eating. It also takes a lot of chemistry, knowing what tastes good together and what doesn't and how much to add or take out. I want to be able to teach young children about cooking, the importance of eating healthy, and the importance of eating at the table as a family. I'm excited about what my 20% project has in store for me.