Baursak and pasta: two cuisines, one joint project!

This long-distance collaboration came about as we were closing stands at the end of the European Science on Stage festival 2019 in Cascais.

Our respective stands were in the same corner of the exhibition space which meant that during the conference, we had time to visit each other and find out a little more about our respective projects. Ainur suggested that we might like to collaborate on a joint project between her school in Shymkent and the school that I am working with in Verona.

We decided to look at the physics and chemistry of preparing food and what lies behind the respective cuisines, because this is a rich topic with a lot of science in it, as well as there being many parallels and differences between the two countries.

For the students, it is an opportunity to make the connections to the everyday application of science and learn something about a different culture, while for us, it is a chance to create a collaboration to explore the STEM teaching opportunities in this topic.

 Within the context of COVID, with restrictions on in-person attendance at school, the kitchen has become a natural laboratory in these times of online-learning at home.

But now, with the new school year just around the corner, the experience gained since the beginning of the year and a recent meeting in Kazakhstan, where together we provided a joint workshop to STEM teachers, we are ready to take the project further.