With great success our ImaginaCiencia team carried out Molecular Gastronomy workshops for high school teachers

26/01/2017

During January 2017, the ImaginaCiencia team from Fundación Ciencia & Vida carried out “Cocina Molecular para el Aula” (“Molecular Gastronomy for the Classroom”) successfully.

This project, funded by the Explora CONICYT Project for the Popularization of Science and Technology 2015-2016, consisted of a theoretical and practical workshop aimed at science and gastronomy teachers, with the focus on teaching them basic physical, chemical and biochemical principles using the techniques of molecular cuisine. Three workshops for 20 teachers each were performed using low-cost and simple materials so that the experience may be easily reproduced in the classroom. Instructors from Fundación and from the Millennium Institute of Oceanography and from CICAT (Centro Interactivo de Ciencias, Artes y Tecnología) from the southern city of Concepción were trained and given the necessary materials to conduct these workshops.

The ImaginaCiencia team provided the teachers a free Molecular Gastronomy Kit containing equipment, reagents and basic supplies and a Procedures Book to help them in explaining their students the theoretical and molecular bases of cooking in a pleasant and entertaining way.

Nicole Halçartégaray, Project Director and founder and director of ImaginaCiencia, says: “We are very proud that teachers from all across Santiago and the Bio-Bio region took the challenge to participate in this project, cooking and eating their own preparations during the workshop. I think that we accomplished the objective of communicating high-level science together with fun and didactic applications for the classroom. Teachers left the workshop highly motivated and with innovative ideas of how to apply this new techniques in their classrooms as an exciting new way to teach their students the basis of biological and physical principles”.

These workshops were carried out at Fundación Ciencia & Vida in Santiago and at the CICAT in Concepción.

“Cocina Molecular para el Aula”: First week (January 3rd-6th, 2017) at Fundación Ciencia & Vida in Santiago.

“Cocina Molecular para el Aula”: Second week (January 9th-13th, 2017) at CICAT in Concepción.

“Cocina Molecular para el Aula”: Third week (January 16th-20th, 2017) at Fundación Ciencia & Vida in Santiago.