This food truck project ties into the Hospitality & Tourism career cluster, as it focuses on business planning, marketing/advertising, menu planning, food costing, equipment sourcing, floor planning, packaging, cooking, and food presentation. Students who are considering entering into a hospitality or tourism career will greatly benefit from the skills and knowleged gained through this project, as well as from taking the courses in the Family & Consumer Sciences department. This project also provides students with opportunities to practice teamwork, cooperation, problem-solving skills, math skills, and creativity. This project provides a unique, hands-on learning experience that reinforces skills that will be useful in many different types of careers.

After presenting a power point with knife cuts, give students a copy of the worksheet with a table that shows the relationships between shapes and sizes of knife cuts used in the professional kitchen.  Discuss sizes and names of knife cuts used.  Give students a copy of the knife cut placemat.  Students could use potatoes or carrots to practice setting up a knife cutting station, practice prepping the vegetable and practice hand placement as they prepare to cut the different knife cuts listed on the placemat.  An alternative to the potatoes and carrots would be to have students make homemade playdough or use real playdough to practice their knife cuts before they work with actual food.  I had students take pictures of their knife cuts using a device or phone.  I shared a knife cuts assignment  with my students through Google classroom so the students could upload their photo to the document and then answer the corresponding questions about knife cuts, knife stations and hand placements.The idea for the knife cut placemat came from a post on the Wisconsin Family and Consumer Sciences Facebook page: Moat 2015.