I’m attaching a modest update from an experience that our Intro to Biotechnology & Biomedical Engineering students (all CHS, virtually all seniors / 1 sophomore) participated in on Tuesday, January 30th, 2018. While the principal focus of our the class tends towards 21st-Century healthcare and the underlying fundamentals that propel those advances, the broader base of what is Biotechnology is inclusive of much more. More so, the origins of Biotechnology stem from antiquity whereby animals were domesticated for a broad range of a uses. In particular, the use of milk to make cheese is an age old technology.
With gracious support from Shirnea Grant, café manager, and Cuco Rojas, executive chef, we were able to provide the entire class with an enjoyable hands-on experience. Each student was able to witness breaking the milk down into curds (i.e. solids) and whey then straining the former through cheesecloth to eventually form a takeaway they could eat. Being able to utilize the commercial kitchen was a significant plus in this regards. Once we got back to the room before the end of the period, I reviewed how the kitchen experience translates more industrialize methods and how Biotechnology is leveraged in the food sciences. While we will get back to growing bacteria on petri dishes in the near term as well as learning about cures for horrific diseases, the day’s earlier experience provided each student with a good anchor for how something old can be new to most of them (i.e. making cheese) and what Biotechnology truly represents. The use of biology and technology to provide a useful outcome or impact to society (e.g. cheese, is this case).
While Chef Cuco used his own personal recipe, the following hyperlink (http://nourishedkitchen.com/farm-cheese-recipe/) for ‘farm cheese’ is reasonably similar to what he utilized.
The lesson design was relatively simple with a first aspect being immersion within the subject material. The second principle aspect utilizing a think-pair-share modality whereby the students were given context to consider prior to learning of the activity. Upon moving to the Garaventa, they were tasked with pairing-up (triplets acknowledged) to make something that the vast majority have never attempted but surely consumed in a a finished form. One can observe in the following images taken during the activity that the level of interpersonal interaction was high and motivated. I believe these students would acknowledge that they had some fun as well. Upon completion and return to the classroom, the remaining ten (10) minutes or so of class were dedicated to discussing and reflecting upon what they completed and how it related to the use of an ‘old-school Biotechnology’.
The following imagery hopefully conveys two important aspects of the class activity: (1) interpersonal interaction/learning and (2) a healthy dose of fun.
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