Usha Raman If there’s any motif that is close to being universal, it is bread. Roti, pao, pan, pita, pain… and a hundred other names (at least) are used to describe this most basic of foods, but the role it plays within a meal, on the table, in the culinary traditions of the world, is unmatched. Planning a project on bread may at first seem to be a case of biting off more than one can chew, but even a thin slice of the loaf should offer rich intellectual repast (if one will forgive the over-use of metaphor!). The obvious place to begin would seem to be the product itself. Ask the children to talk about what they have brought to lunch. You should get a variety of answers, and some of them may include some form of bread, ranging from the ever-popular sandwich to the alu paratha or puri. Most of us may have a limited definition of ‘bread’, taking it to be only that which is baked in an oven and shaped like a loaf – but indeed, bread comes in a variety of shapes, sizes and forms, and only some of it is baked in a conventional oven. But more about that later. From their lunch boxes, travel outward and outfield to prompt them to think about how bread is made, the different names it is known by, how it is served and eaten, idioms and phrases associated with it, and stories where bread plays an important role. You’ll probably end up with a chaotic discussion that goes all over the place, and it will be quite a task to contain it within the confines of a single subject. But isn’t that what a project is all about? This would be a good way to set out the various directions this project will take and give the students an idea of all the activities and topics they will have to engage in over the next few days. It might help if a small group of teachers could brainstorm this together and see how they can divide the project work into discrete classroom units, spread over several subjects. The ideas given here can be worked into different curricular areas. The more obvious ones are science (yeast as a leavening agent, oven design and baking bread, nutrition, etc.), history and geography (cereal production and the kinds of bread made across the world, ceremonial and celebratory breads, the history of bread making), and language (origins

Usha Raman If there’s any motif that is close to being universal, it is bread. Roti, pao, pan, pita, pain… and a hundred other names (at least) are used to describe this most basic of foods, but the role it plays within a meal, on the table, in the culinary traditions of the world, is unmatched. Planning a project on bread may at first seem to be a case of biting off more than one can chew, but even a thin slice of the loaf should offer rich intellectual repast (if one will forgive the over-use of metaphor!). The obvious place to begin would seem to be the product itself. Ask the children to talk about what they have brought to lunch. You should get a variety of answers, and some of them may include some form of bread, ranging from the ever-popular sandwich to the alu paratha or puri. Most of us may have a limited definition of ‘bread’, taking it to be only that which is baked in an oven and shaped like a loaf – but indeed, bread comes in a variety of shapes, sizes and forms, and only some of it is baked in a conventional oven. But more about that later. From their lunch boxes, travel outward and outfield to prompt them to think about how bread is made, the different names it is known by, how it is served and eaten, idioms and phrases associated with it, and stories where bread plays an important role. You’ll probably end up with a chaotic discussion that goes all over the place, and it will be quite a task to contain it within the confines of a single subject. But isn’t that what a project is all about? This would be a good way to set out the various directions this project will take and give the students an idea of all the activities and topics they will have to engage in over the next few days. It might help if a small group of teachers could brainstorm this together and see how they can divide the project work into discrete classroom units, spread over several subjects. The ideas given here can be worked into different curricular areas. The more obvious ones are science (yeast as a leavening agent, oven design and baking bread, nutrition, etc.), history and geography (cereal production and the kinds of bread made across the world, ceremonial and celebratory breads, the history of bread making), and language (origins