Chocolate and Silkworms

You can find me just about every morning at the Café Pacifica having my just-plain-old black coffee and not-so-plain conversation with the early crew – my cafe “homeys”. From time to time, I hear the most amazing stories, one of which I want to share here.

 What is the connection between chocolate and silkworms? The  connection is awesome learning!

One of my crew, Deb, volunteers at a middle school, and works with students in the special education program. The teacher for this very fortunate group finds creative and engaging ways to help her students learn. Here are two examples of her “stealth” education:

Chocolate

Students are assigned to bring in their favorite family chocolate recipe (just the recipe – not the actual yummy). After a few days, students are invited to verbally share a little about their recipe in “Show and Tell”. Next, they are assigned to write a short report about the recipe – where it came from, who makes it, when the family enjoys this treat (holidays, birthdays, rainy days, whenever), and what the student likes about this variation on the chocolate theme.

Then the recipes are converted into arithmetic problems. You are having a party and you are going to have 12 guests. The recipe makes enough for 6 people. Rewrite the recipe doubling all the ingredients. A worksheet is distributed for homework – color in the measuring spoons or measuring cups for  each ingredient.

Another activity has students trading recipes – find someone who has a recipe similar to yours – find someone who has a recipe very different from yours.

Finally, students go to the home-ec room and make some of the delicacies. I hear that other students from the school flock to the chocolate sale table to purchase goodies from the special-ed students

.

Silkworms

The same group of lucky special education students spends an entire year caring for and observing silkworms. When the silkworm shipment arrives, learners divide into small groups. Given all the supplies needed to set up their silkworm farms, students work with guidance from the classroom volunteers to make happy homes for their voracious and productive pets. The small groups are tasked with feeding and harvesting, maintaining a weekly log, and keeping the silkworm environments happy and healthy. Students keep individual journals, and occasionally share their journals with each other.

In addition to the types of engaging activities with the chocolate project, silkworms add learning topics such as biology, ecology, and EEK! even sex education and reproduction.

Our Challenge

I hear you thinking, “Nice story, Chris, but what does this have to do with graduate school?” I argue that these rich types of learning opportunities have everything to do with graduate school. What if we were to identify the desired learning outcomes, consider focus and level of complexity, and then design activities and assignments that are meaningful, relevant, and multi-dimensional?

And, oh by the way, fun is a good idea, too.

So if it’s not chocolate or silkworms, what have you, are you, or might you do for some “stealth learning”?

Chocolate Milk Gives Athletes Leg-up After Exercise

AUSTIN, Texas — Not only does chocolate milk taste good, but two recent studies from The University of Texas at Austin show that it’s also the ideal post-workout recovery drink.

"Serious and amateur athletes alike enjoyed physical recovery benefits when they drank low-fat chocolate milk after a vigorous workout," said Dr. John Ivy, lead researcher on the studies and chair of The University of Texas at Austin College of Education’s Department of Kinesiology and Health Education. "The advantages for the study participants were better body composition in the form of more muscle and less fat, improved times while working out and overall better physical shape than peers who consumed sports beverages that just contained carbohydrates."

Ivy is a nationally renowned sports nutrition expert who established the importance of post-exercise nutrition to athletes' physical performance and recovery, as well as the timing of nutrition intake, and authored the groundbreaking book "Nutrient Timing."

In his two recent, related studies, Ivy and his research team compared the recovery benefits of drinking low-fat chocolate milk after exercise to the effects of a carbohydrate beverage with the same ingredients and calories as typical sports drinks as well as to a calorie-free beverage.

After riding a bike for 90 minutes at moderate intensity, then for 10 minutes of high intensity intervals, 10 trained cyclists had significantly more power and rode faster (reduced their ride time by an average of six minutes) when they consumed low-fat chocolate milk rather than a carbohydrate sports drink or calorie-free beverage.

Compared to the other recovery drinks, chocolate milk drinkers had twice the improvement in maximal oxygen uptake after four and a half weeks of cycling, which included intense exercise five days a week, with each exercise session followed by one of the three recovery beverages. Maximal oxygen uptake is one indicator of an athlete's aerobic endurance and ability to perform sustained exercise. The study included 32 healthy, amateur male and female cyclists.

Ivy's research also revealed that low-fat chocolate milk drinkers built more muscle and shaved off more fat during training, ending up with a three-pound lean muscle advantage after four and a half weeks of training as compared to study participants who consumed a carbohydrate drink. This study also included 32 healthy, amateur male and female cyclists who rode for one hour, five days a week, and drank one of the three recovery beverages immediately following and one hour after the bout of exercise.

"We don’t yet understand exactly what mechanism is causing low-fat chocolate milk to give athletes these advantages — that will take more research," said Ivy, "but there's something in the naturally-occurring protein and carbohydrate mix that offers significant benefits."

Ivy notes that a 30-minute recovery window after exercise, for people of all fitness levels, is as important as the nutrition supplement that's consumed.

“Healthy” chocolate milk

In case you missed it, the New York Times’ Well blog reports today that most of the country’s school districts are starting the new school year with healthier chocolate milk in their cafeterias:

The issue of flavored milk has been highlighted by the chef Jamie Oliver, who railed against chocolate milk and processed foods in school cafeterias in his ABC television series “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution.” On his Web site he notes that one serving of chocolate milk has four teaspoons of added sugar.

“When kids drink chocolate and strawberry milk every day at school,” he writes on the site, “they’re getting nearly two gallons of extra sugar each year. Too much sugar is threatening the health of our kids and we’ve got to do something about it.”

In the past, the pro-chocolate milk argument has been that chocolate milk contains calcium and vitamins kids need, and if you take away the chocolate-flavored option, many schoolchildren won’t buy plain milk instead; they’ll drink something else and miss out on the nutrients altogether. The new chocolate milk still tastes chocolatey but has a lot less added sugar.

Which just proves, once again, that my mom is right about things. When I was a child, she rationed the Nestle’s Quik powder so strictly at home that when I did drink the occasional carton of full-strength chocolate milk at school, it seemed almost too syrupy to swallow. Thanks, Mom! I’m toasting you with some healthy chocolate milk right now.

Share for you :)