Rita Elaine Leary has been a middle school science and social sciences teacher for 36 years—31 of them in Chicago’s public schools. For the last four years, she’s incorporated a food education curriculum into her classes at Ashburn Community Elementary School. She has never seen her students so engaged as they taste spice mixes to understand West Africa’s influence on Spain, prepare Ukrainian dumplings to appreciate the culture of that war-torn country, and bake bread to learn about cellular respiration. “Food education takes it to another level,” Leary says. “I’ve done robotics, and that draws in a bunch of kids. I’ve done coding. Some kids really love coding. We’ve written science musicals. That gets some kids. But food? Pretty much every single attempt has been a win.” This school year will be her fifth time using curriculum from food education nonprofit Pilot Light, she says, “and I’m not going to stop.”