Background ...
Carol Pound has worked as a food technologist for 17 years, in industry (1985-87), as a lecturer in Product Development and Marketing at Massey University (1987-2001) and as a freelance consultant since 2001. She has been closely involved in the Royal Society of New Zealand's CREST-NZ award scheme since its inception in 1989, as a management committee member, resource writer, national Gold Assessor, and as Chairperson of the inaugural CREST-NZ Trust Board. Her energy and enthusiasm in the development and promotion of this scheme has played a critical role in its uptake by schools nationally. Since 2002 Carol has also made a significant contribution to the development of Food Technology education in schools, working alongside teachers to develop support materials and as an mentor for students. Carol has recently been appointed as a Professional Support Facilitator for Beacon Practice schools.
Diana Eagle began her teaching career in Home Economics at Tararua College and taught for three years before leaving to raise a family. When her youngest child was three Diana was approached to return to the school, where she worked part time for a while before moving back into full-time teaching, now in Design Technology, in time for the introduction of Food Technology into the senior school curriculum. Today, she teaches NCEA courses both in Food Technology using Technology Achievement Standards and in Food and Nutrition using Unit Standard assessment.
Diana first met Carol in 2002 when Carol was given the opportunity to help her develop a trial unit, 'Deli Meals', to be used in the professional development programme for the implementation NCEA Level 2 assessment. This unit was trialled in Diana's 6th Form Certificate Design Technology class. At that time Diana was working on her NCEA Level 1 chocolate-making unit for what was her first year of teaching Food Technology, and she took the opportunity to ask Carol 'a few questions' about it.
Diana and Carol subsequently worked together to develop what would become the Year 11 Tararua Chocolates unit, which involves the design and production of a chocolate product for a client. Carol also became involved in the unit's delivery, both to give ongoing advice and support to Diana, and to students. Involvement in the Level 1 unit was formalised when the unit became a Bronze CREST project that same year. The unit has been repeated (with modifications) for several years and won the IPENZ Neighbourhood Engineers Award in 2004.
