Alfabetização científica por meio da gastronomia molecular

Abstract

Molecular gastronomy is the science that studies physical and chemical processes involved in Culinary, with the purpose of optimizing the preparation and use of food, as well as standardizing the outcome of recipes, as cooks/scientists can predict better results for their dishes based on scientific theories. Scientific literacy is the understanding of science and the ways that scientific knowledge can be handled in order to promote ethics, reflection and expansion of individual skills for daily application. In this work, molecular gastronomy helped introduce students to the scientific literacy process, both by bringing science closer to their reality and by approaching topics that are relevant for teaching several science branches, such as: fermentation, thermodynamics, chemical kinetics, solutions, molecular interactions etc. The molecular gastronomy experiences took place at the State School Orlando da Costa Telles in the town of Ibaté, State of São Paulo, with ten high school students, having the goal of analyzing their scientific literacy through molecular gastronomy and evaluating its efficiency. As a concrete result, a recipe book was prepared in the course of the experiences, containing all scientific conclusions discussed in the classes. This book is also availabe for use by teachers in future practical classes. By the end of this work, it could be observed that most of the students felt encouraged to participate actively and reflectively in the scientific practics and showed understanding of culinary processes, which suggests that they had acquired scientific literacy to the extent of comprehending individual and collective impacts caused by science and technology.