On Nov. 16, the students in Mrs. Jeanine Edson’s 3rd block Pre-AP Latin II class spent the block mashing up M&Ms and layering thick chunks of homemade brownies over bars of Ghirardelli chocolate, in an attempt to recreate the classic Roman road.
“I loved this project because we got to do arts and crafts,” Sunny Bettadpur ‘18 said. “It’s not the typical lesson where we just sit down and take notes; we got to get hands on with food, and learn about constructing Roman roads while we were at it.”
The students were assigned the task to bring their own materials and food to build and present a realistic Roman road model, which Mrs. Edson would then judge based on diagrams of the real roads still seen around the world today.
“They were in charge of bringing their own materials and chocolate, all I did was provide the gloves,” Mrs. Edson said. “I’ve done this project for about five years now, and it teaches the students more about the modes of ancient travel and communication in Rome. This project was thought up by another Latin teacher somewhere in the nation, but it was just so brilliant, so I inputed it into my class too.”
Although each group brought a variety of different chocolates, the roads all had to follow a specific design. For the crushed “rocks” at the bottom, students crushed vanilla crackers and M&Ms, and for the layers of gravel on top of the “rocks”, the students used brownies and chocolate icing.
“My group’s model is basically just made up of layers and layers of chocolate,” Lucas Gretta ‘18 said. “After doing this project, I’ve gained more knowledge of how Roman roads are built as well as a ton of chocolate. I’d recommend this project because it’s really fun and exciting.”
The students had a great time assembling their projects and eating them afterwards. Not only did the class enjoy creating and eating miniature roads made of chocolate, but they also had an informational lesson on ancient architecture and transportation.
“Honestly, the most exciting part was getting to eat our models,” Bettadpur said.
