Nutrition for Life

Our year 10 budding future food scientists enjoyed a day experiencing all things Nutrition at the University of Adelaide Waite Campus.

Students participated in a sensory activity in the University Food Innovation Lab, where they quickly learnt that trusting their own senses to measure any aspect of food taste or quality was highly unreliable. They also came to understand how easily influenced their decisions about taste were by simple audio and visual suggestions.

Students listened to a lecture on GMO’s and then were lucky enough to have the opportunity to transform some plant leaf cells themselves using a gene gun.

We heard about some very interesting cutting-edge research related to the new Plant for Space research program. This included how astronauts may be able to grow their own fresh produce sustainably whilst undertaking long journeys in space.

Finally, students engaged in a discussion about sustainable foods of the future, including edible insects, and got to design their own food product with some form of insect protein that they thought they may be able to market to the general public.

A huge thank you to Tina Bianco-Miotto and the wonderful team at Waite for putting together an engaging and informative day for our students.

Emma Toker and Lisa Cibich
Stage 1 Nutrition Teachers