• Question: What is your favourite thing to teach about? Why?

    Asked by unicorn9 to Duncan, Grant, Julie, Nik, Rachel on 13 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Grant Campbell

      Grant Campbell answered on 13 Mar 2013:

      Heat transfer and pressure. These have such wide relevance and application, in food processing and also in many other industries. My children know that I teach these things, and my 6 year old asked me a few weeks ago “Daddy, can you teach me about pressure.” So we started by considering that pressure is a type of energy, and that energy can change from one type to another. So, when you blow up a balloon, you put in work energy, which becomes pressure energy in the balloon, and when you release the balloon it flies around the room because the pressure energy becomes movement energy (kinetic energy).

      I’m off now to teach heat transfer to a class of 200 chemical engineering students! Thanks for the questions – keep them coming.

    • Photo: Rachel Edwards-Stuart

      Rachel Edwards-Stuart answered on 13 Mar 2013:

      Probably the science of flavour. Everyone enjoys eating food and talking about what flavours they like and what they don’t like, so it is always a great topic to engage students with. There has also been some fascinating research done in this area, for example how the colour of foods has a big impact on how you perceive the flavour. If you colour lemon juice green everyone thinks it is lime, and everyone thinks raspberry juice tastes like blackberries if it is dyed black. Also, sugar is really important in driving flavour overall – that’s why low sugar foods always seem very lacking in flavour. When chewing gum loses its mintiness, it is actually because the sugar dissolves – the level of minty aroma is not affected. This means that if you dip the gum in sugar when it has run out of flavour and pop it back into your mouth, the mintiness will come back. And even sound plays a role in food flavour. If you play a crunching sound to someone when they are eating stale crisps, they will think the crisps are actually fresh!

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