TEOLC: Chemistry in the Kitchen: Overview of Curriculum

Text of Presentation to American Chemical Society, 216th National Meeting, Boston - August 24, 1998. Abstract #166. Chemical Education Division. Teaching Science in Non-Traditional Formats.

Chemistry in the Kitchen.

The creation of a Learning Center in honor of my parents, Thomas and Evelyn Orme, has been a back-burner project for the last ten years. During this time I have served as a toxicologist for the New York Blood Center and have been employed intermittently as a part-time instructor in chemistry, physics and mathematics at the Northern Virginia Community College and at Shepherd College. The ratio of consultant toxicology work to teaching has been about ten to one, but as I approach retirement age, I am hoping that this ratio changes dramatically in favor of teaching. My ambition is not to teach at a college or in a public high school, but at a summer camp I am creating on the family farm. The Learning Center, first called by me a Math and Science Center, but later under advice from friends a Learning Center will be located on that farm in Virginia, and the first course offerings will be summer camp programs for high school students.

I have had a lifelong interest in chemistry and cooking. It has been evident to me that a chemistry course focused on the activities that take place in a kitchen is not only possible, but could be a useful alternative for facilities with non-existent or inadequate laboratory facilities. It would also be a useful alternative for courses designed for distance learning or home schooling where providing a laboratory experience is difficult.

The idea of using food materials as reagents in a chemistry course is, of course, not new. Early American chemistry courses were based almost exclusively on food materials. Most experiments, however, like the iodine clock experiment with starch, end up with something inedible. All the experiments I plan result in a meal.

In the past six months I have made a number of decisions which commit the curriculum development effort to specific paths.

· The non-kitchen curriculum will build on specific NSF supported efforts, namely the Kotz-Vinning Chemistry course on CD-ROM (Registered Trademark)

or via Internet.
· Data capture, when desirable, will utilize SCI Technologies (Registered Trademark)

interface with probes especially adapted for kitchen operations.
· The course will be organized in 40 units, each three hours long so that it can be offered as an intensive eight-week summer course or an a two semester evening course.
· Each three hour unit will include preparation and serving of a meal.
· Two teachers will lecture or cook simultaneously. Roles will be interchangeable, but one will always be cooking.
· Simulations and links to traditional chemical operations, visual aids and instructional materials will be through computer video projection. I have purchased a JVC 750 ANSI lumens projector which can display SVGA (600 X 800) pixels on a 6’ X 8’ screen large enough and bright enough to be seen by a class of 30 in a fully lighted room.

These decisions make the curriculum distinct from traditional courses in the following ways:
1. There is no need for a teaching assistant to prepare labs and laboratory reagents. There is no lab other than the kitchen.
2. There must be access to a good kitchen such as is found in home economics department , church or community center.

For math support, I have considered three possibilities:
· a spreadsheet
· a graphing calculator, and
· MathCad.

It is most likely that the spreadsheet, Excel, will be adopted because it most easily supports caloric calculations and meal plan per person conversions. It is also generally accessible to students and accommodates generation of templates.

In adopting the SCI Technologies Lab II chemistry kit I have made a decision to think of this $700 unit as a kitchen appliance. This is an expensive item for a distant learner or a home schooler. It is not an expensive item, however, for a class of 30. Adaptations will be required. The capability to measure two temperatures simultaneously over a timed interval is perfect for researching internal meat temperature and over temperature to give a precise feel for cooking times. The temperature probes which come with the standard kit, however, do not cover the 0 - 500°C temperature range, nor are they appropriate for insertion into roasts or frozen foods as is common in a food technology lab. In another case, the pressure probe of Lab II is appropriate for measuring P and T values in a pressure canner, but the lid of the canner will have to be modified to accommodate the probes. I feel these adaptations will be relatively straightforward.

In considering the Kotz-Vinning CD ROM based course, I have attempted to align certain kitchen activities with chapter headings. The more obvious associations have been made as follows:

Chemistry in the Kitchen Outline (Synchronization with Saunders Interactive Chemistry CD-ROM)

Kotz-Vining Chapter Number	Chapter Heading	Kitchen Activity or "Lab"
Introduction
Chapter 1	Matter and Measurement	Kitchen Units (gm vs oz)Spreadsheet CalculationsMathCad
Chapter 2	Atoms and Elements
Chapter 3	Molecules and Compounds
Chapter 4	Chemical Reactions
Chapter 5	Stoichiometry	Weight Gain/Loss - Calorie Balancing By Calories By Grams
Chapter 6	Energy and Chemical Reactions	The Gas Range The Electric Range
Chapter 7	Atomic Structure
Chapter 8	Atomic Electron Configurations and Chemical Periodicity	The Microwave Oven
Chapter 9	Bonding and Molecular Structure: Basic Concepts
Chapter 10	Bonding and Molecular Structure: Orbitals etc. Metallic Bonding	Kitchen Cutlery
Chapter 11	Organic Chemistry	Plastics in the Kitchen
Chapter 12	Gases	Pressure Canning Baking with Yeast Baking Soda Carbonated Beverages
Chapter 13	Bonding and Molecular Structure: Intermolecular Forces, Liquids and Solids	Ice, Water, Steam Ceramics Preservation by Freezing Freeze Drying
Chapter 14	Solutions and their Behavior	Candy Making Gels (Jell-O, Certo, Agar) Colloids (Milk)
Chapter 15	Chemical Kinetics
Chapter 16	Chemical Equilibria
Chapter 17	The Chemistry of Acids and Bases	Vinegars Sour Dough Bread
Chapter 18	Reactions between Acids and Bases	Acid Foods and Antacids
Chapter 19	Precipitation Reactions	The Curdling of Milk - Cheese
Chapter 20	Entropy and Free Energy	The Refrigerator
Chapter 21	Electron Transfer Reactions	Antioxidants and Cancer
Chapter 22	Main Group Elements
Chapter 23	Transition Elements
Chapter 24	Nuclear Chemistry	Food Irradiation

[The following text describes the chapter correlations.]

The kitchen units most common are pounds and ounces. Conversions to grams are common in FDA food labels. Stoichiometry problems in nutrition are complicated because food intake and metabolism are usually expressed in terms of the caloric equivalent of gram amounts of the different food groups. But weight gain/loss problems can also be formulated as mass intake versus elimination calculations. The gas range and, to some extent, the electric range are facile subjects for relating chemical reactions to energy transfer. The microwave oven is good illustrator of the energy transfer from one point to another by electromagnetic radiation.

The metallurgy of kitchen cutlery, high carbon steel, stainless steel could be integrated in Chapter 10.
The topic organic chemistry has enormous possibilities. This is a point to consider the major food groups as protein, carbohydrate, lipids or it can be an entry to the polymers by describing the many plastic wraps, packaging materials and containers used to protect and serve food. Why do some plastics melt in the microwave oven while others are used for microwave dinners?

In studying gases pressure canning, baking with yeast, baking soda, and carbonated beverages are appropriate topics.

The phase transitions of water are encountered routinely in the kitchen. Ceramics, a neglected area in most chemistry texts could be covered in the study of solids. Preservation by freezing and freeze drying of foods could also be studied at this point.

There are relatively few true solutions in cooking. The organization of water in gels, suspensions, formulations and colloidal solutions like milk is an appropriate topic here, however.

Acids and bases and their reactions can be studied with a variety of foods, and the precipitation of curds in milk to make cheese is a natural extension of this even thought might not be the best example of a precipitin reaction in a true solution.

If a student understands the refrigerator, she is on the way to understanding thermodynamics. Very few people understand what food antioxidants are, or their role in cancer prevention. Food irradiation is a current events topic of considerable importance.

A one to one correlation need not exist [between chapter and lab] and, in fact, rarely exists in a traditional chemistry course. Moreover, there are certain basic laboratory operations—such as filtration and extraction—which are rarely treated at all in the lecture portion of a traditional chemistry course. The first unit I am developing is in fact of discussion of coffee and tea which illustrates the kitchen counterpart of filtration and extraction in the lab.

[numerous slides on kitchen extraction and filtration operations.]

Nutritionally, the three-hour course session would end up with a balanced meal. For this I have adopted two different standards—the FDA food group pyramid and the "Exchange" program of the American Diabetes Association.

Because a balanced meal is planned, not all kitchen operations within a three-hour session will be part of the focal chemistry demonstration. For instance, a baked Alaska can be used to demonstrate the importance of specific heat and thermal conductivity. We put ice cream into the 450° F oven, and the meringue browns before the ice cream melts. We will still need a meat loaf, soup, salad, and vegetable side dishes although the focus of the session is thermochemistry and the pičce de resistance is the dessert.

As is indicated in the Kotz-Vinning Chapter outline, an understanding of kitchen appliances is just as important as an understanding of food materials. Many appliances illustrate principles that are more often covered in physics courses than in chemistry courses. I do not consider this a defect in the curriculum if non-science majors who will never take a course in physics course are among enrollees. The microwave oven, for instance, is as good an illustration of the principle of electromagnetic radiation as the UV visible spectrophotometer. The non-science major is more likely to encounter a microwave oven in daily life than a spectrophotometer.

Since the course is in one sense a cooking course, I have adopted as a cookbook the work of Shirley O. Corriher, Cookwise (ISBN 0-688-10229-8, available from William Morrow and Co.) This cookbook has a chemical orientation. It explains in words many food chemistry concepts. It is not a food chemistry text, however, and it does not give chemical structures for the macromolecule reaction it describes.

In closing, I emphasize the attributes of this course that make it a culinary experience.

1. The student will learn how to fold a napkin and set a table.
2. The student will learn about food preparation and food service as a social grace in a social setting.
3. The course will emphasize that food must be:
· wholesome
· nutritious
· tasty
· attractive
4. We will promote the four C’s of CFSAN.
· Chill
· Clean
· Cook
· Do Not Cross-Contaminate
5. We will emphasize that in the control of food borne illness, the CFSAN priorities are Microbiology, Microbiology, and Microbiology

I look forward during the rest of my life to developing this alternative in teaching chemistry, and I welcome comment and collaboration in the effort. Thank you for listening.