DINING-AROUND: A CULINARY EXPERIENCE TO INCREASE CULTURAL AWARENESS AMONG TOURISM UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

This paper summarizes the “Dining Around” assignment that was developed to increase the international exposure and awareness of undergraduate tourism students through a culinary experience by drawing on the ethnic restaurants in two University towns (University Park, PA and Columbia, MO). The implementation of the assignment at Penn State (RPTM 300) and at University of Missouri (PRT 4357) revealed that students welcomed the opportunity to experience other cultures as “local tourists” even within a simulated context. Importantly, this assignment showed that is useful to accomplish learning at different levels of the Cognitive and Affective domains of Bloom’s Taxonomy (1956)