Placing chemistry within a cultural or biological context is often reserved for inspiring non-STEM majors. These same contextual tools can be used to challenge our majors to integrate their chemical knowledge into novel applications. As chemists, they will need to bridge these connections; guiding them on a pathway will provide them with a strategy for the future. As students, they too are excited to connect their lessons to current cultural conversations. For context, I found Food Chemistry to be broadly appealing to our majors, easy to continuously update or tailor, and complex enough for a rigorous discussion of polymer structure and behavior. Our family recipes, modern molecular gastronomy, and industrial food production all use the chemistry of biological molecules to manipulate the structure, texture, and perception of food. In this talk, I will present the design of a seven-week advanced elective in chemistry built to discuss the source, chemical reactions, and physical properties of biological polymers and lipids in food. The course presented many opportunities to discuss our biological response to food as well as the value and purpose of industrial chemical modifications. Materials from the Chemistry Collaborations, Workshops, and Communities of Scholars (cCWCS) program on Food Chemistry were adapted to target undergraduate majors with a prerequisite of a full two years of prior chemistry coursework. Hands-on experiences and kitchen-chemistry homework were integrated into the structure of the lecture to combine direct observed experiences with literature and textbook readings. This course structure challenged students to integrate past coursework and explore new concepts at the interface of chemistry and biology.

Enticing majors to integrate concepts through food chemistry

2019 Spring National Meeting

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.