On May 28, a cooking project in a Westford Academy Spanish III Honors class left five students with minor burns after hot oil popped while churros were being fried. The incident happened during a three-day cooking assignment where students were required to research a traditional food from a Spanish-speaking country they had studied throughout the year.
After about a week of finding recipes online and gathering ingredients, students began preparing their dishes in the school’s culinary classroom. While day one went smoothly, the second day involved two unexpected accidents, including an oil explosion that left multiple students with burns to the arms, legs, and face.
The project, led by Spanish teacher Scott St. Denis, is his way of incorporating his overall teaching style that emphasizes project-based learning. His class regularly includes interactive and hands-on assignments designed to help students engage with Spanish language and culture in meaningful ways.
Additionally on the second day, one group attempted to sauté wet tomatoes in oil, which caused a large fire. The fire was contained and none of the participants were hurt during the incident.
Later that period, students frying churros experienced an oil combustion. The hot oil splattered in multiple directions and struck several students nearby.
Anya Turczyk, a sophomore at WA, also participated in the cooking and made churros by following an online recipe.
“One thing about churros is if it doesn’t have spikes on the side, it explodes because the steam on the inside [is] too much for the churro,” Turczyk said.
Sophomore Yuvraj Lalwani was burned on his hand during the incident.
“I happened to be right in front of it […] when it burst I jumped back and blocked the oil that flew through the air with my hand. Had I not blocked the oil I would’ve had a burn on my face,” Lalwani said.
Sophomore Krisha Gami, who witnessed the churro incident from across the room, said that students should be more safe and prepared.
“I think this was a really great experience, and I think we all learned a lot from it. Something that [Profe St. Denis] could do differently next year is just give us some more warnings and maybe watch some videos,” Gami said. “But I also think that was kind of on us to research ahead of time and just be more careful considering that we knew what dishes we were making.”
