{"id":43435,"date":"2025-11-28T12:46:35","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T01:46:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/mlc\/?post_type=article&#038;p=43435"},"modified":"2025-11-28T12:46:37","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T01:46:37","slug":"from-bugs-to-brownies-investigating-the-future-of-food-in-year-9-geography","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/mlc\/article\/from-bugs-to-brownies-investigating-the-future-of-food-in-year-9-geography\/","title":{"rendered":"From Bugs to Brownies: Investigating the Future of Food in Year 9 Geography"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This term, Year 9 Geography students have once again delved into one of their most exciting and thought-provoking units \u2013 &#8216;Food for the Future&#8217; \u2013 exploring innovative solutions to the global challenge of food security. Building on last year\u2019s success, this year\u2019s program introduced a stronger project-based element, with students taking greater ownership of their research design and developing deeper understanding of sampling techniques, ethical considerations, and how to conduct a valid geographical primary data investigation.<\/p>\n<p>As part of the unit, students examined the adoption and barriers of emerging protein sources such as cellular meat and insects. Each class began with a model experiment involving a blind taste test between a regular corn chip and a cricket corn chip, before planning and implementing their own investigations.<\/p>\n<p>Working in groups, students designed their own experiments by developing two food samples:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Sample A \u2013 made with regular flour<\/li>\n<li>Sample B \u2013 made with cricket flour<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Armed with consent forms, surveys, and carefully structured sampling plans, students invited members of the School community to participate in their experiments. They explored perceptions of taste, texture, and willingness to adopt insects as a sustainable food source.<\/p>\n<p>This year, the creativity and complexity of recipes was remarkable \u2013 from brownies, cinnamon rolls, macarons and pizza \u2013 each reflecting student choice and innovation. Through this inquiry, students not only developed their geographical investigation skills but also engaged critically with issues of sustainability, ethics, and the future of global food systems.<\/p>\n<p>A huge thank you to the Year 9 Geography Team who helped me bring this vision to life: <strong>Lynne Bondar, Bronwyn Peace, Abbey O\u2019Connor<\/strong> and <strong>Thomas McCosker.\u00a0<\/strong> Below are some quotes from 9GE6 to summarise the unit so far:<\/p>\n<p><em>I did not expect people to not notice the difference between normal baked goods and ones with cricket flour.<\/em><br \/>\n<em><strong>\u2013 Anjina Wagle<\/strong><\/em> (Year 9)<\/p>\n<p><em>Our group made pizza with cricket flour (sample B) and plain flour (sample A) it was really successful because everyone could barely tell the difference between the two samples and all our survey answers were diverse and detailed.<\/em><br \/>\n<em><strong>\u2013 Cloris Xu<\/strong><\/em> (Year 9)<\/p>\n<p><em>It was a really great experience trying to cook with insects and it was fun to cook with our friends. My group made biscoff cookies and they were very successful in terms of very similar look and taste.<\/em><br \/>\n<em><strong>\u2013 Greta Sharp<\/strong><\/em> (Year 9)<\/p>\n<p><em>Our group made caramel slice, and the results were spilt evenly, meaning cricket flour didn\u2019t make a notable difference.<\/em><br \/>\n<em><strong>\u2013 Xanthe Johnson<\/strong><\/em> (Year 9)<\/p>\n<p><em>Our group made caramel slices which turned out to be a fantastic result! The only difference that I could measure was the crumb base being airier and crunchier in the cricket flour sample.<\/em><br \/>\n<em><strong>\u2013 Summer Le<\/strong><\/em> (Year 9)<\/p>\n<p><em>Our group made brownies. It was interesting how the majority of people were able to determine which one had cricket flour since both tasted very similar.<\/em><br \/>\n<em><strong>\u2013 Sarah Zhang<\/strong><\/em> (Year 9)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"mailto:drodrigues@mlcsyd.nsw.edu.au\"><em><strong>\u2013 Danielle Rodrigues<\/strong><\/em><\/a><br \/>\nActing Deputy Head of Academics \u2013 Year 10 to Year 12<\/p>\n<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-43435 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-medium'>\n<figure class='gallery-item link-'>\n<div class='gallery-icon'>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/d1dfwahqlx324v.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2025\/11\/Y9-Geography-IMG_3559.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightcase:1:slideshow\" title=\"\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/d1dfwahqlx324v.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2025\/11\/Y9-Geography-IMG_3559-480x640.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<div class='gallery-item__overlay d-flex justify-content-center align-items-center'><span class='fal fa-plus fa-2x'><\/span><\/div><\/figure>\n<figure class='gallery-item link-'>\n<div class='gallery-icon'>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/d1dfwahqlx324v.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2025\/11\/Y9-Geography-IMG_3557.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightcase:1:slideshow\" title=\"\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/d1dfwahqlx324v.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2025\/11\/Y9-Geography-IMG_3557-480x640.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<div class='gallery-item__overlay d-flex justify-content-center align-items-center'><span class='fal fa-plus fa-2x'><\/span><\/div><\/figure>\n<figure class='gallery-item link-'>\n<div class='gallery-icon'>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/d1dfwahqlx324v.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2025\/11\/Y9-Georgraphy-IMG_3554.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightcase:1:slideshow\" title=\"\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/d1dfwahqlx324v.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2025\/11\/Y9-Georgraphy-IMG_3554-480x640.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<div class='gallery-item__overlay d-flex justify-content-center align-items-center'><span class='fal fa-plus fa-2x'><\/span><\/div><\/figure>\n<figure class='gallery-item link-'>\n<div class='gallery-icon'>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/d1dfwahqlx324v.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2025\/11\/Y9-Geography-IMG_3547.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightcase:1:slideshow\" title=\"\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/d1dfwahqlx324v.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2025\/11\/Y9-Geography-IMG_3547-640x480.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<div class='gallery-item__overlay d-flex justify-content-center align-items-center'><span class='fal fa-plus fa-2x'><\/span><\/div><\/figure>\n<figure class='gallery-item link-'>\n<div class='gallery-icon'>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/d1dfwahqlx324v.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2025\/11\/Y9-Geography-IMG_3542.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightcase:1:slideshow\" title=\"\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/d1dfwahqlx324v.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2025\/11\/Y9-Geography-IMG_3542-640x480.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<div class='gallery-item__overlay d-flex justify-content-center align-items-center'><span class='fal fa-plus fa-2x'><\/span><\/div><\/figure>\n<figure class='gallery-item link-'>\n<div class='gallery-icon'>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/d1dfwahqlx324v.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2025\/11\/Y9-Geography-IMG_3545.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightcase:1:slideshow\" title=\"\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/d1dfwahqlx324v.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2025\/11\/Y9-Geography-IMG_3545-640x480.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<div class='gallery-item__overlay d-flex justify-content-center align-items-center'><span class='fal fa-plus fa-2x'><\/span><\/div><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n<p>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This term, Year 9 Geography students have once again delved into one of their most exciting and thought-provoking units \u2013 &#8216;Food for the Future&#8217; \u2013 exploring innovative solutions to the global challenge of food security. Building on last year\u2019s success, this year\u2019s program introduced a stronger project-based element, with students taking greater ownership of their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":43433,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","article_category":[6],"article_tag":[],"class_list":["post-43435","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","article_category-senior-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/43435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43435"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"article_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_category?post=43435"},{"taxonomy":"article_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_tag?post=43435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}