About Barley      Processing Barley     It's a Health Food      LEARNING ACTIVITIES     Fun & Games

Learning Activities

Tickle Your Taste Buds

Objective: Students will understand the characteristics of barley and how they affect its use as a food source.  They will also consider the nutritional benefits of barley and its contribution to a balanced diet.

Procedure:

1.            Review with the class the information on barley versus wheat flour and the nutritional content of barley from the information available from the above links.

2.            Discuss how barley contributes to a balanced diet and good health (consider calorie content, carbohydrates, protein, fibre, vitamins, minerals). Where does barley fit in the Food Rainbow?

3.                 Divide students into working groups as appropriate for available facilities and resources.  Review safety rules and proper procedures for working in a kitchen, including safe handling of food.

4.                  Using the Resource Sheets for this activity, assign a recipe and one of its variations to each of the groups.

5.           When the selected recipes have been prepared, baked, and cooled, have the class compare the results and rate them using the Score Sheet for Baked Products.  Tally the score sheets to find the class score for each product.

Note: remind students to use caution in tasting the baked products if they have any food allergies.

For Discussion:

1.                   How do the class scores for the baked products compare with the different proportions of barley flour used in the recipes?

2.                   What does this tell us about the physical properties of barley? (consider gluten, starch, and fibre)

3.                   What do you think is the ideal proportion of barley to wheat flour for each of the three types of baked products?

4.                   How does the nutritional benefit of barley compare with that of other grains? (e.g. wheat, oats, rye)

Suggestions for Extending this Activity:

1.                   Students can visit health food stores, ethnic food stores, and specialty suppliers to find other baked products containing barley and share their discoveries with the rest of the class.

2.                   Discuss the rating system used on the score sheet.  Do you agree that appearance, volume, interior quality and taste should all be given equal weight (i.e., 25 points each)?  Design an alternative weighting system and rate the baked products again to see if the class scores for the products change.

3.      Students can use other recipes and design their own experiments to find the optimum                      proportion of barley to other ingredients.