When I started planning for this project, I wanted to choose a topic that students could connect with in, real life. I work as an Education support staff member in a school, and because I also travel on public transport after school a lot, I hear students talking about things they see online, like food trends, fitness culture, and products that are advertised as being “high protein” or “meal replacements”, . I realised that these messages can be taken very quickly as facts, especially when students do not have enough knowledge around this to question themselves. That made me want to bring awareness from a young age to help students make smarter food choices by looking beyond the front of a packet or the advertising claims. Research also has shown that food marketing can influence food choices of children, making this s a relevant issue to explore (Gascoyne et al., 2021).
Project-based learning matched the idea because I did not want students to just listen to information about making smart food choices. Instead, I wanted them to investigate the issue for themselves. In Activity 1, students are introduced to a broader idea and begin questioning their first impressions of different foods. Activity 2, students create their own snack ideas. This is where the learning moves beyond thinking whether a food is just healthy, since students also have to consider how the snack could be made more visually appealing through its colour, texture, shape or presentation. This links directly to AC9TDE4K04 and its elaboration about food creativity (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA], 2022). In activity 3, students make one of their designs and receive feedback from peers, which helps them decide what could be improved, which connects with the role of feedback in supporting students' further learning (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). Overall, the activities build on each other.
Design thinking helped me think more carefully about how students could move from having an idea to actually developing it into something they could test. I included two different snack designs before students chose one because I wanted them to compare possibilities ,rather than settle on the first idea that comes to mind (Gallagher & Thordarson, 2020). Bloom’s Taxonomy also help me check that the thinking became more complex as students move from understanding and comparing information to creating their own solution and then evaluating their success (Krathwohl, 2002). Furthermore, Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences also influenced the variety of tasks, as students use drawing, discussion, food preparation and written reflection to show their understanding in different ways. (Gardner, 1983).
Research suggests that e-portfolios can support formative assessment and make students' learning process more visible over time (Gun-Tosik et al., 2023). Therefore, if I were to run this project again, I would replace some of the separate worksheets with a simple digital portfolio where students could keep their first ideas and designs, feedback and reflections.
