Fruit salad

Failure is always an option. This spring the weather in February and March has been heavy rain. Few trees are in a fruit production cycle. Outdoor field walks have been wet, soggy, and muddy. I decided in advance to rerun the fruit salad exercise. But there were some miscalculations and oversights from early on. 

I had bought a can of pears to "beef up" the pome section, and then forgot the can at home. The blueberries had been in a can too long and had a metallic taste, plus they made the salad an unappetizing color. None of the students likes the blueberries. And making things all the worse, the crushed pineapple was far more crushed than the label let on. Must be pineapple chunks. I would double the number of tropical fruit cans - that has the more interesting local fruits, get rid of the blueberries - they were a disaster - and use true pineapple chunks. The mangoes were well received, and the pears would have been a nice pome addition. Peaches or apricots would have worked nicely too.  The mixed fruit on the left was also a good choice - it brought grapes and did have pear in it. Two cans of that would be good as well.

The use of the bowls worked well, a few spare are left in the prep room cupboard. But the bowls used up more fruit salad and I was out by the eleventh, and fortunately last, student. So two cans tropical fruit salad, two cans non-tropical fruit salad, one or two cans of mangos, a can of pears, perhaps one of apricots or peaches, and a can of pineapple chunks is recommended for 11 to perhaps 15 students. 

If the class were any larger, smaller containers might be necessary or a large fruit bowl.

The bamboo appetizer picks were a nice touch, added a little elegance above and beyond a toothpick.

The last printer standing is on its last ink cartridge, so the division is operating under orders to go as paperless as possible. I was able to move the handout that I usually print out into Instructure Canvas. I found that on the mobile Canvas app the table could be drag scrolled left and right to be read, but a better solution was to view the table in landscape - the table is currently fixed width. Perhaps this could be remedied in code, but I did not have time to edit the underlying HTML in the assignment. A post hoc examination suggests both a table width and individual cell widths have been set. Students were told in a last minute announcement to bring their tech with them. The submission was a text entry document. This works well on mobile but means that the student cannot see the fruit type table while entering their answer in the text entry box. I recommended writing interim answers on scratch paper and then making the submission. 

Justiqa, an observer, and Destiny Grace

Starsha and Caitlin

Caitlin Rose

Smart phones enabled this session to function well for most students.

Starsha

Destiny Grace

Joe Scott and Jimmy

Jarred, CiJay, Piruno

After the class concluded one of the students who was absent reached out to ask how to complete the assignment. I could only say that I did not know - the fruit salad was an in-class residential activity. I suppose that they could go out and buy a can of fruit salad, but ethnobotany class is, as always, about being there. 

No blueberries. No crushed pineapple. More tropical fruit salad. Don't forget the pears.