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Dalton News
High School Students’ Food Focused Curricula
High School history students enjoyed exploring food on recent NYC field trips to the Extrapolation Factory, Fleisher's Craft Butcher, and activities in our new teaching kitchen.
In History teacher Kevin Slick’s high school elective, “You are what you eat,” students explored ideas such as What is the future of food? What and how will we eat? Students examined the future of food production, consumption, distribution, accessibility, and regulation. Utilizing the speculative design models of the Extrapolation Factory -- which explores possible futures using workshop-based design projects -- students learned about "signals” (potentially representative indicators of future trends) and used those to imagine future outcomes. Hands-on modeling and prototyping helped make the activity material and meaningful.
Students also visited Fleisher's Craft Butcher in Brooklyn to examine more closely sustainable meat production and consumption. Fleisher's practices whole-animal butchery, and students witnessed a master butcher process a pork side while demonstrating various cuts and their use. Fleisher's is part of a larger organization focused on creating an alternative food system based on quality, sustainability, ethics, and transparency, and the visit helped students understand the various ecological, agricultural, and economic factors associated with artisanal meat production.
Just before the holidays, our new Teaching Kitchen was busy as students in "World Religions” (co-taught by History department colleagues Jennifer Stolper Muenz and Kevin Slick) and "You are what you eat" explored the intersection of modern Jewish religious identity and food pathways. The central focus of this activity was making latkes as the students explored how food reflects and reinforces cultural and religious ideals and norms and practices. Under the guidance of Chef Charlie Forster Stewert (also a HS Comp Science teacher), and with a nod toward authenticity, students grated potatoes by hand, mixed the ingredients and then fried the latkes in duck schmaltz. Delicious!
Grades K-3
53 East 91st Street, New York, NY 10128
Grades 4-12
108 East 89th Street, New York, NY 10128
Physical Education Center
200 East 87th Street, New York, NY 10128
