Parker: STEM Civics students getting wide array of lessons
STEMCivics Charter students watched an already delicious education and gastronomical enlightening trip to Costa Rica deliver more satisfaction.
Squads Abroad sweetened the learning pot Wednesday evening with a visit by Henrik Bodholdt, renowned chocolatier, owner and CEO of Maleku Chocolate.
Bodholdt, originally from Copenhagen, Denmark but now living, working and enjoying life in Costa Rica, offered a onehour tutorial on chocolate — from growing cacao plants, harvesting their large pods and extraction of dark cacao beans that resemble almonds.
A memorable part of Bodholdt’s dissertation arrived when students enjoyed a hands-on opportunity to produce chocolate.
Education never tasted as diabolically good as this night of chocolate turned a home base community room into Bodholdt’s chocolate workshop.
“I’ll never look the same way at a piece of chocolate again,” Julio Grullon, a STEMCivics Charter School student, offered.
Real learning occurs with insights, facts and ideas that offer an understanding about how numbers, machinery, computers even chocolate-making works.
Bodholdt’s journey toward chocolatecovered success started with exploration as he visited Talamanca, the fourth canton in the province of Limón in Costa Rica.
“I had been working on a book and traveled to meet the BriBri,” an indigenous tribe of Costa Rica.
“So, I stayed a few days with a family near the Panama border. And that’s when I saw the cacao for the first time. I saw the fruit and watched how they made their chocolate drink.”
“And when I ground it up and produced the chocolate product students witnessed here? That was it. I fell in love with the process, aroma and texture— everything.”
“Until that day, even though I regularly ate milk chocolate, I never thought about where chocolate came from.”
Chocolate represents a sweet science for Bodholdt who farms cacao and engages in first-hand production of exquisite products.
Our first full day on this Squads Abroad junket that combines a service component with cultural enrichment activities, included hard work at Buho Okhy Elementary School.
Ended with our own individual creation of chocolate and a remarkable learning experience.
Find out more about Bodholdt’s chocolate escapades at malekuchocolate.com.
L.A. Parker is traveling in Costa Rica with the STEMCivics students and chaperones Feb. 5-13.. Find him on Twitter @LAParker6 or email him at LAParker@Trentonian.com.