Every great food truck starts with a big idea. For Berkeley Carroll's second graders, it starts with the BC Design Process, and a lot of Spanish vocabulary.

The 4th Annual Food Truck Project returned this spring, bringing together STEAM and world language learning in one of the Lower School's most beloved traditions. Working across both disciplines, students dreamed up their own food carts and trucks from scratch, brainstorming concepts, planning designs, building models, and refining their work through multiple rounds of iteration. Alongside their engineering work, students developed menus complete with comidas, bebidas, and postres, and practiced the descriptive vocabulary of colors, sizes, and names that would bring their creations to life en español.

In Spanish class, the learning went even deeper. Each class co-created an original interactive story, Los Camiones de Comida (The Food Trucks), using a language method called "Story-Asking," an approach that invites students to shape the narrative themselves, choosing character names and deciding what each character orders from a rotating cast of Latin American food trucks. By making the content personally relevant, the method transforms vocabulary practice into genuine storytelling.

The project culminated in a real-world test of everything students had learned. La Newyorkina Ice Cream Shop rolled onto campus with a cart full of paletas, and second graders had the chance to place their orders in Spanish. Putting their learning into action, with a sweet treat as a reward.

¡Buen provecho to Berkeley Carroll's second graders and their teachers.

Click Here to See More Photos From The Food Truck Project