Food For Thought: Design for Learning (and Snacking)

I promise I am about to talk about a super exciting class project or activity that students enjoy and learn from. But before we get to that, let’s talk accreditation! The 2024-25 Criteria for Accrediting Engineering Programs, criterion 3, contains seven student outcomes including: “2. An ability to apply engineering design to produce solutions that meet specified needs with consideration of public health, safety, and welfare, as well as global, cultural, social, environmental, and economic factors.[1]” There’s a lot happening in that outcome! And, as usual, I’m here to tell you food can help. By creating a food-product & process design experience for your students, you can give them a taste of in the interaction of engineering design with each of those factors. I’ve done variations on this with seniors, first-years, and as K-12 outreach, on time scales from three weeks down to three hours.