Thirty ninth grade students taking the Health intensive worked in the Commons Cafe two weeks ago on January 9 and 10.
“They’ve got people at all of the stations… There’s some that are in charge of cutting all the vegetables for the salad bar. Some are working on desserts. Some are running the computers,” Health teacher Nicole Harris said. “They’ve got different roles, and then everyone will help with cleanup.”
Students actually made food, with jobs ranging from mixing cookie dough batter to frosting cupcakes for monthly faculty birthdays.
“It’s definitely supervised, and they’re more in a helping role, but they are very involved,” Harris said.
The cooking activity was part of a nutrition unit, with a “threefold” purpose.
“Learning about the food and how it’s made, learning about the people that work back there, but then also the behaviors and how people in our school act in the Commons Cafe and some of the choices that they make,” Harris said.
Students seemed to enjoy the experience.
“I got to connect more with the people that worked in the commons,” ninth grader Nadia Maurou-Dikeni said. “They just have six people in the whole kitchen, and they have to prep for 700 people, or even more than that.”
“It’s an experience that I think students should really try, and it helps you really know the community and know what goes behind your food a lot better,” ninth grader Thomas Li said.
According to Harris, this activity was eye-opening for many students.
“A big takeaway is always like, no one says thank you, they just rush in here, they’re not patient. So I think people learn a lot. They get a different perspective, for sure,” Harris said.
The program is not new. However, in a middle school poll, about 72% of students said that they could not recall the activity taking place in previous years.
“So that’s an indicator right there,” Harris said. “You don’t even notice who’s serving the food, right? That’s crazy.”