Students make cheddar biscuits in Nutrition and Wellness class to practice cooking skills

Students+make+cheddar+biscuits+in+Nutrition+and+Wellness+class+to+practice+cooking+skills

Gillian Ping, Staff Writer

Yesterday and today, students in FACS teacher Jessica Thomas’s Nutrition and Wellness class made cheddar baked biscuits similar to those found at Red Lobster. These biscuits, made from scratch, helped teams of students learn the basics of cooking. 

“This is our first lab where we’re working as a team, so the most important thing is using their team to figure out all of their steps” Thomas said. “They made a pre-plan [for the first time], and they’re following their plan to complete the recipe.”

Students have participated in labs before, but these have been individual labs with written steps. This time, students were required to plan with their team and follow their own directions, which proved to be challenging for many. 

“What I [see] so far is just basically [students struggling to] follow the directions,” Thomas said. “They are so excited I think to cook and then they mix up the steps so they’re not in order. [It’s challenging] to follow the recipe step by step by step.”

Despite this, Thomas believes the skills that students learned in this lab will be helpful in the future. 

“I think cooking is an essential skill, especially when you go off to college, who is going to cook for you then? And even if it’s just as simple as reading the steps off the box, if you don’t read the steps correctly, then that will mess up the entire meal,” Thomas said.

This will not be students only chance to practice following directions, as the Nutrition and Wellness courses will have upcoming labs with No-Bake cookies to reinforce some of the skills introduced with the first lab.