Athens Drive students in the Food and Nutrition II course experiment with cooking new creations daily. The students were recently assigned a project in which they created their own food truck and used their creativity to develop new recipes and cuisines. 

The aspect of the Food Truck Project is to help build a creative mindset for the students to challenge their creativity and utilize the skills they learned throughout the course to produce a tasty outcome.  Students also had to present their food trucks and explain the thought process behind their unique Food Trucks. This project also helped push students out of their comfort zones and share with their fellow classmates their creativity process. 

“Foods II is designed to have students think for themselves without having a teacher give a recipe and tell them to prepare,” said Beavers, Foods teacher. 

Sherene Khalil, a junior at Athens Drive, is one of the students participating in the Food Truck project. Khalil describes her experience with taking the Foods I course as “a great time.”  Her enjoyment from the first Foods class led her to register for the second course Foods II. Khalil also talks about the food truck she and her group created called “Brownies for Days.” Her favorite thing she did with her group was creating the topping for the brownies. 

“After brainstorming and getting ideas from class to cook more has helped me,” said Khalil. 

Another thing she enjoyed about the project was having her team with her and creating new moments together through cooking. She explains how the food truck has helped her to be able to cook more. It has also helped with her creativity wanting to try to make new foods and see how it turns out. Khalil can cook more at home instead of ordering takeout or going out somewhere to eat. 

Brownies for Days is a delicious dessert with whipped cream and rainbow sprinkles. 

“The end product and the multiple chives we had when it came to the bowl topping, and being able to change up with what we had,” said Khalil. 

As the Foods teacher, Beavers loves hearing feedback like this from her students. She wanted to create an environment in her class where everyone could get to know one another. She wanted her students to have fun with this class and possibly create a great bond with one another, that is what inspired her to assign the Food trucks project. This is the first school year in which Beavers did the Food trucks. She wanted her to do something fun while doing it themselves so she could observe and see how they did.  

“While they are learning new ways to prepare food, I am also learning with them,” said Beavers. 

Beavers wanted them to make their own recipes, not online ones because she wanted them to be creative with what they make. After they finalized their food truck, they had to present it to the class of what they came up with. She wanted to take notes on how this food truck project went for future reference and was pleased with the results. She discovered new things about her students when they explain their creations. Beavers can see how they come up with new ideas, where they got them from, how they make them, etc. She wants to continue on doing the food trucks because she saw how all her students brought out their own thinking and creative ways of what they can do. 

“Doing these types of labs one sees their personalities, likes and dislikes, and abilities come out,” said Beavers.