Food Truck Challenge

Seventh grade STEM teacher Carlos Charriez wanted his students to learn about the design thinking process and to create a collaborative project with Lower School students, so he introduced the Food Truck Challenge. Their leading question was: How can you design a food truck for third graders that focuses on healthy eating? They were challenged to create a menu, design a logo, create a slogan, and pay careful attention to presentation and truck design. In addition to other elements of the design thinking process—brainstorming, defining, prototyping, and testing—a crucial piece of design thinking is empathy and understanding a client’s needs to design toward solutions. 

For the Food Truck Challenge, seventh graders first visited with their third grader “clients” to interview them about their wants and needs in a food truck experience, their favorite foods, possible allergies, and to gather other ideas. The students then took this information and in groups worked on brainstorming ideas, designing their food trucks, and crafting healthy menus. Then, in the build stage, they built cardboard food trucks from which to serve their food. For the final stage, seventh graders set up their food truck stations in the Science Center and welcomed the third graders who got to sample all the offerings and provide feedback. The third graders were excited to visit the food trucks, taste the menus of all the groups, and the seventh graders were thrilled to share their creations! “The creativity and craftsmanship of the seventh grade class was on full display for this partnership and I could tell based on their smiles that they took a lot of pride in their work as they served their third grade clients,”  Charriez shared. “If students remember anything about this STEM class, I hope that they realize how important the skill of empathy is when working with others.” 

See the gallery of photos here!