Journalism Portfolio/Reviews

Second Year (2011) Herb Project Article

Second Year (2011) Herb Project Article

The Second Years are busy with a Cross-Curricular Herb Project. This combines Home Economics skills with Math and English to create a wide variety of herb knowledge for S2 pupils. Herbs are green leafy plants that can be cooked with, eaten or dried for people to enjoy in food and for medicinal purposes.

This all started in the Home Economics department when each class made a few different dishes that included herbs like dill, parsley, chives and coriander. Then we moved our Herb Project to Math where we made tables, graphs and charts showing peoples opinions on the green edible plants. Finally we transferred our herb know-all to English where we wrote about the importance and different uses of herbs.

The use of herbs has been going on for centuries, usually for medicinal purposes, for an absolute taste sensation or even just for decoration, and it seems that herbs have become a popular addition to many plates for a main course. Herbs such as mint can be used in desserts and coriander in soup. The tasty green plants that people call herbs aren’t always a radiant green colour as they can be dried, turning them a dark brown or sometimes even black in colour and 7 out of 19 pupils said that dried was their favourite to buy as it was readily available and easy to cook with. The top two chosen herbs  were basil and coriander which are normally used fresh, preferably grown locally or by yourself. An impressive 3 out of 12 pupils grow herbs at home and can enjoy the health benefits and great tasting food that herbs help to supply. Overall herbs are an amazing way of keeping food tasting nice and helping your body stay healthy.

The Herb Project was beneficial for S2 and has taught a lot of us all very valuable cooking tips that we can use in the future. Now our food won’t taste bland but instead interesting, tangy and full of flavour. This project hasn’t only helped us in one area of the school but in three. We have expanded our knowledge of herbs and now when we can use herbs to cook with or when we have to draw up a pie chart, we won’t be completely clueless as to what to do. This has been an interestingly different topic and one enjoyed by many pupils.