Adaptation on the Fly: the Evolution of Marin SEL. By Ethan Gaines and Dylan Adler

Adaptation is the evolution of a species over time to better fit its environment. For example, the whale, a huge sea animal, used to be a land animal no bigger than a dog and we know this because whales have a hip-bone that has no use. The hip-bone in a whale is called a “vestigial structure,” because of its lack of use. MSEL didn’t get the chance to adapt over time during the Friday cook-off, like the whale did. We had to adapt in the moment to save our cooking competition, called the “Hunger Games”, which is exactly what we did.

It all started the week before Spring Break. We were studying the food system in the United States in all of our Marin SEL classes, looking at “conventional” food and comparing it to healthier, local, organic food. Then our teachers informed us that to build upon the idea of organic local food, we would be having an organic, local, healthy, food cook-off.   We chose our teams of five, and each team had its own style of cooking, drawing from different cultural influences from all around the world. The goal was to create dishes that used ingredients that were organic, local, sustainable, healthy, and used environmentally friendly ingredients. As a class, we ventured to one of the Marin Farmers Markets the day before the competition.

The Farmers Market was an exciting experience:

I was walkin’ down the road with my group b’side me

Zargar came up next to us sayin’ “Can you please find me

a Belgian waffle, savory and sweet

by the Belgian’ waffle truck we should meet”

Takin’ pics with the group

got distracted from dat smell o’ soup

We ate some kettle corn

so sweet and shiny

It looked so good

it amost said buy me

We fought o’er dat pop corn

and those dat didn’t get any felt forlorn.

            Our trip to the market was a huge success. Everybody got the ingredients that they needed. We also learned some interesting things at the market, because we were asking stall owners questions from our MSEL questionaire.  For example, we were told that spider DNA is used in McDonalds French fries.  We learned that it takes hard work, dedication, and passion to live the farmer lifestyle and grow local, organic food. We felt confident coming back from our Farmers Market. Little did we know that the next day would bring chaos beyond our wildest dreams.

           

            We got to the kitchen adjacent to the MarinSEL room the next day feeling confident in our dishes, prepared to create our delicious creations. We began to cook and had some early success, but success was soon replaced with disaster. We were continuing our cooking when a catastrophe arose. We heard “BEEEEEEP BEEEEEEP BEEEEEP BEEEEEP BEEEEEEP BEEEEEEP”, the blaring sound continued to pulsate throughout the school, signaling a supposed fire threat. Evidently, some smoke and steam from our cooking leaked into the hallway setting off the fire alarms. The school was quickly in a state of panic.  There was mayhem in the hallways, as everyone had to evacuate the school.

           

            When we returned to the room we found that administrators at the district level had decided we could no longer use the kitchen. At first we were disappointed, but then, as our teacher, Ms Leonhart said,” We handled it like champions”.

           

            We had been studying evolution and adaptation in biology that week, and quickly realized that, like our ancestors before us, we must adapt to our environment. We had to evolve our dishes to match the conditions before us. Some dishes had to be completely rearranged, like replacing crepes with angel cake and mixing ingredients to make a salad, but others stayed mostly the same due to Ms. Leonharts superb actions in bringing all the uncooked food to her own kitchen and cooking it for us.

            The food came out fantastic, especially with Ms. Leonhart’s herculean efforts. (Teacher’s note: This entailed shlepping three loads of half-prepared dishes to my car, a quick trip home, an impressive blowout of my kitchen, the abandonment of my second period class--huge props to Frankie, our campus security officer for holding down the fort--and a return to school in time to beat the bell. All told, I'm glad I know how to cook and live so close to school. Thanks for the thanks!) The winning group for our “Hunger Games” cook-off will get to go to a Giants game, complete with time on the field and a Green Tour of the stadium as part of the Giants partnership with local schools. It hasn’t yet been announced which group gets to go, but everyone hopes it will be theirs.  Through this process, we managed to adapt to a difficult situation, and evolved as a class and as people. We learned that there will always be roadblocks along the way, but with creative thinking, we can surpass any obstacle. We will be ready to face the other challenges that are sure to come our way during our time with MarinSEL, and in our lives. As a wise person once said,” It’s never crowded at the cutting edge.” We are honored to be part of the cutting edge at MarinSEL.