Background
Diana Eagle:
The Year 11 students who came into that first class had no idea of what they were going to do. They had come in and been quite an enthusiastic class in Year 10; done some nice crafty work, done a bit of chocolates, tried out a few things, had a bit of a go at making moulds; but they came in really not knowing what was going to happen.
The Tararua Chocolates unit was developed in 2002 as part of Diana's first Year 11 Food Technology programme in which students could be assessed using internal and external NCEA Level 1 Achievement Standards. In the process of developing their outcomes students could also meet the requirements for a Bronze CREST award.
Since then the unit has been repeated, with ongoing development such as an increased level of interaction with the client. In 2004 the class won a Transpower Neighbourhood Engineers Award for the project.
The 2005 unit was presented as a workshop, with resources, at the 2005 Technology Education New Zealand (TENZ) Conference, and the material forms the basis of this case study.
Tararua College is a decile 5 school in Pahiatua with a roll of around 500 pupils; predominantly Pakeha with 15% Māori, 1% Pasifika and 1% Asian.
Technology is a compulsory subject at Year 9 and is offered as options in Years 10-11 as Food Technology and Materials Technology (with Information & Communication Technology available in Year 10). Years 12-13 have the option of Senior Technology.
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 in Food Technology.
