The purpose of this unit is to engage students in applying their knowledge of measurement to solve problems involving food technology.
This unit provides an opportunity for students to apply their skills and understanding of measurement to solve food technology problems involving the interdependence of variables when scaling the components of a recipe.
To ensure maximum engagement and participation in this unit, you should consider your students' prior knowledge in the following areas:
This cross-curricular, context-based unit has been built within a framework that has been developed, with input from teachers across the curriculum, to deliver the mathematics learning area, whilst encouraging differentiated, student-centred learning.
The learning opportunities in this unit can be further differentiated by providing or removing support to students, and by varying the task requirements. Ways to differentiate include:
With student interest engaged, mathematical challenges often seem more approachable than when presented in isolation. Therefore, you might find it appropriate to adapt the food-focused contexts presented in this unit. For example, you might frame each session around food contexts related to an upcoming event (e.g. school camp) or invite students to come up with a shared context (perhaps related to their cultural backgrounds and experiences of preparing and sharing food). You might also change the food products featured in each session to be of increased relevance to your students.
The first session is an introductory activity that is aimed to spark the imagination of students, to introduce the need for a particular idea or technique in mathematics that would enable them to explore deeper into that context. It is expected that rich discussion may be had around the context and around the nature of the mathematics involved.
Following the introductory session, each subsequent session in the unit is composed of four sections: Introducing Ideas, Building Ideas, Reinforcing Ideas, and Extending Ideas.
Introducing Ideas: It is recommended that you allow approximately 10 minutes for students to work on these problems, either as a whole class, in groups, pairs, or as individuals. Following this, gather the students together to review the problem and to discuss ideas, issues and mathematical techniques that they noticed during the process. It may be helpful to summarise key outcomes of the discussion at this point.
Building Ideas, Reinforcing Ideas, and Extending Ideas: Exploration of these stages can be differentiated on the basis of individual learning needs, as demonstrated in the previous stage of each session. Some students may have managed the focus activity easily and be ready to attempt the reinforcing ideas or even the extending ideas activity straight away. These could be attempted individually or in groups or pairs, depending on students’ readiness for the activity concerned. The students remaining with the teacher could begin to work through the building ideas activity together, peeling off to complete this activity and/or to attempt the reinforcing ideas activity when they feel they have ‘got it’.
It is expected that once all the students have peeled off into independent or group work of the appropriate selection of building, reinforcing and extending activities, the teacher is freed up to check back with the ‘early peelers’ and to circulate as needed.
Importantly, students should have multiple opportunities to, throughout and at the conclusion of each session, compare, check, and discuss their ideas with peers and the teacher, and to reflect upon their ideas and developed understandings. These reflections can be demonstrated using a variety of means (e.g. written, digital note, survey, sticky notes, diagrams, marked work, videoed demonstration) and can be used to inform your planning for subsequent sessions.
The relevance of this learning can also be enhanced with the inclusion of key vocabulary from your students' home languages. For example, te reo Māori kupu such as kauwhata (graph), meneti (minute), ōrau (percent), āwhata (scale), wā (time), putu (degree), taurangi (variable), pānga rārangi (linear relationship), ture (rule, formula), papatipu (mass), karamu (gram), manokaramu (kilogram), and pāpātanga (rate) might be introduced in this unit and then used throughout other mathematical learning.
This activity is intended to motivate students towards the context and to inform teachers of students' understandings. It utilises mathematical skills and knowledge in the context of food technology.
Baking in bulk or batches?
A café serves cheese scones. A standard mixture takes 15 minutes to prepare, 20 minutes to bake and produces 14 scones. If the mixture is doubled, it needs a further 7 minutes to prepare but takes the same time to bake. The café oven can fit a maximum of 20 scones at a time for even baking.
In their reasoning, encourage students to consider the practicalities of the context, food technology, and to include relevant calculations within their reasoning.
Introducing Ideas
Building Ideas
Reinforcing Ideas
Extending ideas
Building ideas
Reinforcing Ideas
Extending Ideas
Building Ideas
Reinforcing Ideas
The recipe for a cake served in the Light-not-Lite café asks for:
The Light-not-Lite Café uses the following conversion tables to calculate the mass of the ingredients they use in the kitchen.
Flour, baking powder, cocoa powder | Caster sugar, oil | Water, milk | |
Mass (g) of one cup | 130 | 225 | 240 |
Cup | Tablespoon | Teaspoon |
1 | 16 | 48 |
The cake is sliced into 8 pieces for serving in the café. Find the mass, in grams, of one slice of cake.
Extending Ideas
Using the recipe for a cake served in the Light-not-Lite café, and the conversion table given, find the percentage difference in mass of the plain cake compared with the chocolate cake.
Building ideas
The barista at the Espresso Express is paid at the rate of $24 per hour.
Reinforcing Ideas
The barista at the Espresso Express is paid at the rate of $24 per hour.
Extending Ideas
The Espresso Express makes coffee continuously during working hours. The average cup of coffee uses $1.50 of resources to produce and then the labour cost the barista of (paid at the rate of $24 per hour) needs to be included. The café charges $4.50 for a steamed milk coffee drink.
Building Ideas
Provide time for students to explore the following problems: Noble Nibbles are serving trays of finger food to a function. They have estimated that 90 trays of nibbles are needed.
Reinforcing Ideas
Extending Ideas
Dear parents and whānau,
Recently we have been applying our knowledge of measurement to solve problems involving food technology. Ask your child to share their learning with you. Together, you might be able to create a new problem for our class to solve, using a food context that is relevant to your family.
Printed from https://nzmaths.co.nz/resource/catering-size at 1:22pm on the 3rd May 2024