By Susana Tomaz
TIC of STEAM

A shift to plant-based foods was recommended by Sir David Attenborough in his new documentary “A Life on our Planet” to prevent the collapse of the natural world, and to feed our rapidly growing population that is estimated to reach ten billion people by 2050.

Y9 STEAM students were involved with developing a “Future Food” which is innovative, nutritious and sustainable and could be sold as a study snack in the school canteen. Students had to consider how to source their ingredients in a sustainable way, including through foraging.

This collaborative project integrated Maths, Science and Food Technology to really immerse our students in a very real world issue.
From colour changing noodles and dandelion jelly to chocolate crickets, their designs were futuristic, sustainable and very delicious.

To further explore the creative process used in developing innovative products, the students visited Giapo. Giapo himself is an incredible and talented chef, creating award winning products with application of new digital and scientific technologies and principles (CAD, 3D printing, freezing with nitrogen, etc). The tour was a great way to ignite a passion for new product development, giving students the chance to witness ‘thinking outside the square’ design which will help them with their STEAM projects and design thinking process.

Comments from students

Overall, my STEAM food experience was great, I had loads of fun making and eating our innovative study snacks.
-Danika Zaidi (pictured on the right)

I teamed up with Hazel to make the ‘Brilliant Beetroot Brownies’. These brownies were made with eggs, cricket flour, beetroot, chocolate, blackberries, and butter. The idea was to have the snack filled with protein, be sustainable and be innovative. The cricket flour, the black berries and the beetroot was our way of making the brownies innovative and increasing the amount of protein at the same time. I was also able to try a lot of different types of snacks from other groups as well as chocolate covered crickets! Might I add that the chocolate covered cricket didn’t taste bad. They actually tasted like rice crackers and chocolate. Overall this was a great STEAM experience!
– Jin-Joo

Inspired by Giapo

To further explore the creative process used in developing innovative products the students visited Giapo. Giapo himself is an incredible and talented chef, creating award winning products with application of new digital and scientific technologies and principles (CAD, 3D printing, freezing with nitrogen, etc).

The tour was a great way of igniting the passion of new product development for the students, especially the chance to witness ‘thinking outside the square’ design which will help students with their STEAM projects and design thinking process.