Molecular gastronomy is an interdisciplinary scientific discipline that combines chemistry, physics and culinary science to study and understand the physical and chemical processes that occur during cooking. Molecular gastronomy is a relatively new scientific discipline compared to physics and chemistry and is still in its development phase and consequently less known to the general public. In primary schools across the country, pupils are offered the elective subject of modern food preparation. This master thesis examined, among other things, the familiarity of home economics teachers and/or teachers of the elective subject modern food preparation with modern gastronomy techniques. 130 teachers from different regions of Slovenia filled in an online questionnaire, which focused mainly on the knowledge and use of modern gastronomy techniques in the subject of home economics and modern food preparation. It was found that the majority of teachers are not familiar with modern gastronomy techniques and therefore do not use them in their teaching process. The vast majority of teachers who are unfamiliar with the techniques of modern gastronomy are over 35 years old, which means that they could not have learnt about these techniques during their studies at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Education, as the elective course covering these topics was not offered that long ago. The results also show that the vast majority of teachers do not think that modern gastronomy techniques can be taught with the aids and tools provided in the home economics classroom. This mainly showcases a lack of knowledge about the techniques and the scientific background of the techniques. It was also found that teachers of home economics and/or elective subject modern food preparation, regardless of age and years of teaching experience, consider it important to know and integrate modern gastronomy techniques into their teaching. The vast majority of teachers, irrespective of age and years of teaching, would use more modern gastronomy techniques in their teaching if they had short didactic recommendations and guidelines with recipes and theoretical background. For this matter, a short handbook for teachers of home economics and/or the modern food preparation elective subject has also been designed. In the master's thesis, the students' knowledge of molecular gastronomy techniques was also tested, as part of a workshop that was designed at the University of Ljubljana Faculty of Education and then carried out at five different primary schools in Slovenia, within the subject modern food preparation. The students' knowledge of the techniques of molecular gastronomy, which was verified by a diagnostic knowledge test, was low before the workshop, with an average score of 2.3 points out of 14 possible points. During the workshop, students learnt about modern gastronomy techniques and tried their hand at preparing their own dishes. After the workshop, their knowledge was tested again. The post-test showed an improvement in results and knowledge, with an average score of 10.6 out of a possible 14 points. Before the workshop, the students' individual interest in the modern food preparation subject was also checked, and after the workshop, their situational interest in the workshop itself. It was found that a high proportion of students showed a high level of interest in the modern food preparation subject as well as interest after the workshop, while students' knowledge did not depend on their level of interest before or after the workshop. After the workshop, we were also interested in the opinion of the teachers who were the holders of the modern food preparation course on the implementation of the workshop. The workshop was of great benefit to the teachers for further work, as they learned more about the basic techniques of molecular gastronomy and will thus find it easier to start gradually integrating techniques into their teaching, which was also one of the goals of the workshop.
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