Year 6 students from St George Christian School recently put their science skills to the test to create their own gelato flavours as part of the school's STEM studies.
Gelato Project was the brainchild of teachers Jeremy Watts and Karen Binns, who came up with the novel approach to teaching students how to work scientifically.
Students first learnt about liquids, solids and gases before creating ice-cream in a plastic bag to demonstrate states of matter and how heating and cooling changes the state of food or flavours.
The students then paid a visit to Pure Gelato at Croydon Park to learn more about gelato manufacturing and gain inspiration for their own creations.
Back at school, they hit the food technology kitchens to come up with their own gelato flavours, including gingerbread, cookie and caramel, nian gao, and bubble tea and berry.
Pure Gelato staff tasted the flavours before declaring 'gingerbread' the winner. The company went on to produce five litres of gingerbread gelato so it could be tested on a wider audience during the school's recent Live and Unplugged concert.
The feedback was positive, with 90 per cent of taste-testers liking the flavour, which many said "tastes like Christmas".
Mr Watts said it was very satisfying to see students embrace the gelato challenge, which introduced year 6 students to scientific principles, encouraged critical thinking and taught them to take an ordered and logical approach to problem-solving and scientific designs.
"The importance of seeing their ideas come to life reinforced scientific learning. We are very grateful to Pure Gelato for partnering with us in this project," he said.
