FARMINGTON -- Farmington sixth- and seventh-graders baked homemade bread over the weekend and turned in more than 200 loaves of yeast bread Monday morning to donate to Northwest Arkansas Food Bank.
Students also brought in canned goods to help the needy.
Lynch Middle School, along with three other schools in northwest Arkansas, participated in "Bake For Good, Kids learn, bake, share," a project sponsored by King Arthur Flour Co., out of Vermont. The program shows students how math, science and reading apply to everyday situations and then gives students the opportunity to help others.
Pam Jensen is one of four instructors with King Arthur Flour Co., who travel to schools to teach children how to bake a homemade loaf of bread. Her set is similar to a cooking show. At Lynch, eighth-grade students Cambre Strange and Kalli Stout were her assistants and helped in making loaves of bread.
Throughout the presentation, Jensen explained how the core subjects in school play a part in making a loaf of homemade bread. She discussed the role of yeast in baking bread, why the dough is sticky, showed different ways to shape the dough, such as a braided loaf of bread, and talked about the importance of measurements.
"Baking is science," Jensen told them. "We're taking science, math, art and reading and putting it together to create a yeast bread from scratch. Science is watching, observing and initiating change."
After the program, King Arthur provided each student with a cloth bag filled with a recipe book and all the ingredients and tools needed to bake two loaves of bread.
The students could bake one loaf for their families and a second loaf to bring back to school.
"You will be helping someone in need with the generous gift of your time," Jensen told the students. "Hunger is a problem in our country and we want to help you help alleviate that problem."
Jensen said the company travels to about 200 schools each year, reaching 35,000 students. King Arthur Flour is 225 years old and the Bake For Good program has been going on for 25 years. Schools apply for the project and the company tries to reach several schools in the same area to minimize their costs.
She came to Northwest Arkansas through Rea Smith, a former math teacher at Lynch Middle School and now math facilitator at Reagan Elementary in Rogers. Smith's husband is Budd Smith, assistant principal at Lynch.
Budd Smith said the project accomplished two main goals. It showed how math, science and reading are tied to cooking and through that, students learned something about empathy and helping others in the community.
Two seventh-graders, Brody Hill and Avery Wesley, said they planned to bake loaves of bread. Neither has made bread before.
"I feel it would be an educational thing to learn and we'll get to enjoy bread and give bread away," said Brody.
Avery said his favorite part of the presentation was learning how yeast works in the dough, causing it to double in size.
"I pinch myself everyday," Jensen said. "This is such a great program. It's like the best job on the planet."
General News on 02/03/2016