Amanda Voorman

“Student Chefs: Connecting Cultures through Cuisine”, Voorman’s winning program idea, involves incorporating cultural food research and  preparation into the world language curriculum. In addition to students reading articles and watching movies to learn about cultural  customs, celebrations and cuisine, they will now be able to fully experience cultural cuisine by researching recipes and making the  dishes themselves. In a fully stocked kitchen, students will prepare and present their culturally relevant dishes to others via their own  cooking show. They will create an in-language ingredient, utensils and measurement list and use a recipe written in the target language.  Students, once they finish their research and outline, will use camcorders and headsets to record themselves at home preparing their dish  from start to finish and then record commentary in the target language to fit the steps in the video. They will then present their  cooking show to the class and bring the dish in to share. Voorman, who resides in Toledo, hopes the program also helps students  understand the nutritional value of food.