Rice and rice products

Year level: Middle primary / Upper primary Learning outcomes Students develop an understanding of some of the varieties of rice and rice products. Look in your food cupboard or visit an Asian grocery to find some different types of rice and rice products. Compare your findings: How many different sorts of rice and rice products can you find? Where do they come from? How has the rice been processed? How nutritious are these items? (Examine the details on the packet) Examine some menus from different Asian restaurants or recipes in cook books to list five dishes that that use rice in different ways. Discuss What do they taste like? Which would be quickest to prepare? Which would be most nutritious? Try grinding some rice into flour. How easy is it? How might you make it easier? Examine this photo of a machine made by village people called the Muong from the mountains of Vietnam. In Vietnam a mill like this is used to pound rice into flour. The machine is made from wood and bamboo from the jungle. A heavy wooden beam is driven by a stream of water to swing up and down to pound the rice. The flour produced from the mill can be used to make rice paper which is used to wrap around spicy foods. Use the instructions in the following documents to make your own model of the rice pounding mill. Assessment task Create a display or poster showing some varieties of rice and some rice products.