MIXOLOGY, COOKOLOGY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY: A NEW PROJECT IN THE FRAME OF THE ITALIAN SCHOOL-WORK EXPERIENCE

This project has been conceived and realized in the framework of the XXIX edition of "Future Past", the first Italian convention aimed to dissemination of scientific and technological culture. Afterwards, it has been advanced, as part of the planned activities of an innovative italian educational project, called school-work, with the financial support of MIUR. The initial activities have been re-designed and targeted, and news ones have been added in order to enhance Science learning of a class of 25 High school students of 16-17 years of age (http://www.isnitti.gov.it/). The main purpose was to provide young people, in addition to basic knowledge, the necessary skills to enter the labour market alternating the hours of training with the hours spent studying in school and hours spent in the enterprise market, to ensure field experience and overcoming the training gap between work and the academic world in terms of skills and preparation. It is an educational model that in Italy, in recent years, is spreading within the final three years of high school, in all types of both high and vocational schools. In this frame the project "Mixology, Cookology and Molecular Biology" aims to help promoting the scientific/technological culture with simple, fun and also unusual activities employing procedures and some of working methods used in the field of Food Science and in a Molecular Biology laboratory. It is not a dual system and more than a work-based learning. In other words students involved in this project used their kitchen at home as a realm of experimentation, curiosity, intuition and emotion by applying techniques, tools and knowledge learned in the molecular biology laboratory at University and/or at School. In particular, the various types of activities proposed and realized with high school students are intended to contribute to thrill, intrigue and raise awareness on the impact that science through its technological applications has in every moment of our daily lives. The preparation of a dish, for example through the cooking of one or more ingredients not only requires knowledge on the particular food and its nutrients but also of technical and technological knowledge for the identification of the most suitable tools such as the choice of a cooking system and/or of a piece of equipment rather than another. In short, applications of the scientific method in the kitchen. The interdisciplinary nature of this project has been realized also with the active involvement of students in a virtual laboratory in English. The students also invent simple recipes in order to understand that often there are some professions for which there is any university course. They understood also that to be a molecular chef in the world today means that culture and knowledge acquired in school and the University are also useful to implement sources of income for any profession. All activities and many of the products have been documented with digital pictures taken by the students during or at the end of their activities. For the assessment and the evaluation of achievement level of training and skills objectives, structured tests for the evaluation of the progression of learning and a semi-structured tests for the final evaluation of the objectives achieved have been prepared. The degree of student participation during all phase of the project was also considered.