Breaking Bread
Freshman Year 2016
During the Breaking Bread project, I got the opportunity to make a variety of breads along with different groups of people. I also got to construct a geometric design and build a machine that helped in the wheat growing process. We started by looking up a quick recipe online and baking our first loaf in a bread machine, needles to say, many things went wrong. But we kept on baking almost every week and we continued to improve. For the designs in math, we learned about Euclid, the father of geometry and how to construct shapes with a straight-edge and compass. We then finalized our design in Illustrator and laser cut it onto a cutting board. The overall project actually integrated every subject which was challenging, but fun.
StoryTellingWe started our storytelling process by first writing journal writes everyday. We then had to interview someone we found interesting, and spent a few weeks revising the interview in audio or writing. After that, we looked into universal themes and read stories and watched videos to see how a story was told using some of those themes. In a group, we wrote several stories using a main theme, and for the end of the project we had to choose a final one. My groups theme was daring and my story was about the time I had to stealthy steal an answer sheet in the first grade to pass a quiz. Throughout this section of the project, we learned about the history of this sacred food and its importance, as well as how bread also brings people together.
|
Baking BreadThis was the first time I made bread from scratch, so it was a very interesting experience. Over the months, we learned what baker's percentage was and how it affects the recipe and loaf. For the first few weeks, we were put into random groups and to make a variety of breads, ranging from cinnamon rolls to pizza. We also visited a local Italian restaurant and had a chef come to our school to teach us how to make chocolate mousse. In the final weeks of our project, we were put into groups of four and had to make our own recipe for exhibition. We then spent the next weeks fixing our recipe until it was our ideal loaf. My group and I made a sweet loaf with a cinnamon mixture in the middle and a glaze on the side.
|
Machines |
Math Menu and cutting Boards |
In physics, we were told to dismember a bread machine with one group, and then use those parts of the machine to create something new. There were popcorn machines, ice cream maker, and my group tried to make an incubator. This was all to help us build our final machine. The machine we had to build, needed to help make easier the process of growing wheat, cutting wheat, grinding and mixing and also baking. My group, which had 3 people, decided to create a wheat garden with a semi-self watering system that disperses several cups of water over a week using a soaker hose. After building, we had to make a manual for the machine.
|
During math, we learned about baker's percentage and how to convert the percentages into grams or volume to get a recipe as perfect as it could be. We also looked into how different nutrients can change over the phases of wheat. From seed all the way to a baked loaf, we had to graph each point using Demos and find out the function equations for each point too. After learning about nutritional change, we began to learn about Euclid, the father of geometry, and how we could construct a design of our own. We drew our construction by hand first, then drew it in Illustrator and then laser cutted the design on a cutting board.
|