Gates Chili Central School District

Seventh grade students at Gates Chili Middle School turned up the heat in their Family and Consumer Science (FACS) class this spring with a combined cooking class. FACS teachers Stephanie Blaesi and Dana Navarro-Lindsay combined two of their FACS classes in the middle school’s large kitchen facility. Students had already learned the basics of kitchen safety, sanitation and food prep procedures, and they put those skills into action by whipping up dozens of Buffalo chicken wraps! Students practiced using new kitchen tools like the mandolin and techniques like shredding lettuce. Each student was responsible for cooking and constructing their wraps, while prep and cleanup were a team affair.  

Students look forward to cooking classes, which, after the initial lessons about safety and sanitation, are spread out over the duration of the class. Blaesi said, “The students appreciate cooking and work hard to make sure their work is completed so they can experience the fun in each cooking lab...Teaching students how to cook gives them many valuable lifelong skills as well as learning how to make a dish...they use collaboration, math, problem solving, science, critical thinking, and creativity, to just name a few!”