Playing with food: moving from interests and goals into scientifically meaningful experiences

As science educators, we want all learners to see the relevance of science to their lives and the world in which they live. Achieving this goal, however, has proven to be a difficult endeavor. Many learners see science as useful only in school, and they face difficulties connecting science to the real world and to their own interests and goals. In our research project, Kitchen Science Investigators, we aim to start with learners’ interests and goals in cooking. We then help them connect cooking to science, using play to help them see food as an object of investigation. We then transition learners into engaging in authentic scientific practices. In this paper we present three cases that highlight scientifically meaningful experiences for KSI learners and the ways play, facilitation, and artifacts bridge the gap between their interests and scientific practices.