Food Chemistry: An Asynchronous Course Designed with Hands-On Experiments for Undergraduate General Education

Abstract

This article describes a laboratory course designed for nonmajors with a focus on food chemistry. The course can be delivered in a traditional format or in a fully remote, asynchronous format. The course is designed for students to develop an understanding of how chemists view the world and how chemists generate knowledge. Food chemistry was selected as the topic because it taps into the popularity of food and cooking in the larger culture, the topic directly connects to the lives of students, and reagents and materials can be safely used and disposed of at home. Although food and cooking are themes throughout the course, it is not a cooking course; students use food as a medium for scientific exploration. This course has been taught three times during summer terms in 2019, 2020, and 2021 and has been well-received by students. The course’s focus on learning the process of doing science rather than content knowledge allows for course assessments to focus on whether students are learning the scientific method (i.e., posing and testing a hypothesis, identifying sources of error, determining uncertainty, analyzing results, etc.).