Pea Ridge High School culinary students shared their semester final, a team-created gingerbread "house" (or town or field in this case), with students, staff, parents, and community members this past Friday during lunch. High school culinary teacher Jenn Jacobs teaches three different levels of culinary courses. Her foundational course is "Food Safety and Nutrition" followed by "Culinary I" and ending with "Culinary II."
Students in Food Safety and Culinary I were in teams of 3-5 students, and students in Culinary II classes all worked together (around 12 students per class) to create one large-scale gingerbread project. People who attended their gingerbread house spectacular were allowed to vote on a winning house; one from Food Safety and one from Culinary I. The winning team will receive a free coffee for each member from "The Perch," the mobile coffee shop that is run and operated by Mrs. Jacobs and her culinary students.
This year, our Culinary program grew from one Culinary II class to two Culinary II classes being taught, meaning more students requested the course so another class was formed. This is undoubtedly a direct result of fun and creative projects like this semester's final and excellent teachers like Mrs. Jacobs! Our culinary students and Mrs. Jacobs catered 17 different events this semester, serving over 1,250 people! We are thankful for all of the time, effort, and energy she puts into making her classes an engaging place for students to learn and enjoy and for her willingness to help cater many of our school-sponsored events.
