Food for thought

By Mihiri Wikramanayake

Last week, the students of the Primary School of Ladies' College, Colombo 7, held an International Food Festival in the college premises. This was a wonderful experience shared by the students, parents, and their friends in commemoration of UN Day and as a fund raiser for the School's Centenary Building programme.

Held for the first time, this food fair was the culmination of several weeks of study and application. The students combined their environmental and social studies curriculum to learn about different continents and countries, to understand relationships between physical features, climatic conditions, vegetation and animal life and the various resources of a country, and the occupations of its people.

Working together and sharing responsibility as groups, these 4th Graders studied four continents, Asia, Australia, Africa and the Antarctica, and presented their importance with various charts and collages.

All the students were dressed in the colourful national costumes of their country of study, made up of bits and pieces from their family wardrobes!

A little girl even went to the extent of draping on her father's sarong to make up a very authentic Peruvian poncho! While the 4th and 5th Graders concentrated more on the environmental and social side of the continents and countries, the Year 6's prepared the tourist brochures on the different countries. This was done as part of their English class syllabus.

The children were totally responsible for gathering the necessary information and went to great lengths to do so. Lots of information was gathered from encyclopedia's and reference books while others surfed the Net, visited embassies and libraries and talked to people who had visited these places.

The group studying Madagascar had no idea what to prepare as an authentic diet, but a father stumbled upon a colleague who had lived and worked there and he took it upon himself to prepare a complete meal from Madagascar and brought it for the fair.

Such was the enthusiasm generated for this venture. There was fish and ice cream from Iceland, tabbouleh and hoummos from Morocco, Wiener schnitzel and apfel strudel from Austria, and Roast Beef and Yorkshire pudding from England.

The final outcome was the wonderful gathering of parents and students who came to support and partake in this international food festival.

"I had a lot of fun dressing up in my Japanese dress," said a Grade 6 student. "Her grandmother had more fun helping her to dress up" quipped her mother.

"Hey, what do you think about us?" asked a bunch of lively Cypriots. "Don't we look real?" Everywhere I looked, the smiling happy faces were evident.

"Isn't this what schooling should be about?" said another student. "Fun and enjoyment in what we study."

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