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Cornell University is excited to host the 4-H Career Explorations Food Science: DNA Fingerprinting summer camp again in 2013. This 2.5 day workshop for high school students is scheduled for June 25-27 on the Cornell Campus. To register, go to http://nys4h.cce.cornell.edu/events/Pages/CareerEx.aspx. Also, we are pleased to once again partner with 4-H Camp Bristol HIlls Hills to offer a week long food science and food safety curriculum to a diverse group of K-12 summer campers. This event will be held at 4-H Camp Bristol Hills in Bristol, NY July 7-12. To register, go to http://www.4-hcampbristolhills.org/summercamp.html. Cornell University will be hosting another workshop for K-12 science teachers during the summer of 2013. More details will be posted February 2013posted late March 2013. |
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We are pleased to announce that our symposium proposal, "Food Safety Education: The value of K-12 education and outreach to advancing the development of future food safety leaders," has been approved by the Program Committee for further development for the 2013 Annual Meeting of the International Association for Food Protection. The meeting will be held in Charlotte, North Carolina from July 18-31, 2013. Abstract: Foodborne illnesses continue to pose a substantial public health burden in the United States and around the world. One persistent contributing problem is a relatively poor level of food safety "knowledge" in the population at-large. To address this, there is a clear need to expand existing food safety education and awareness programs, and to establish new ones. However, this cannot be done without a critical mass of food safety professionals. Unfortunately, career and educational opportunities in food safety are largely unrecognized by K-12 students, meaning that many students come to food safety relatively late in their academic training. The purpose of this symposium is to highlight innovative approaches to engaging future food safety professionals by targeting K-12 populations. The symposium will kick off with four presentations on different strategies used recently to reach this important pool of future food safety professionals followed by a presentation describing USDA-NIFA priorities for food safety outreach and conclude with a roundtable discussion. Attendees will come away with an understanding of why it is important to include food safety education in K-12 curricula and how engaging K-12 students can help grow the population of food safety professionals around the world. More details will be provided after the IAFP Program Committee meeting in February 2013. |
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Cornell Food Science at the New York State (NYS) Fair: Graduate students and staff from Cornell University's Department of Food Science hosted a booth in the 4-H Youth Building at the NYS Fair on August 28th, 2012. Cornell University's Food Science booth engaged over 150 people from different educational backgrounds in interactive educational activities focusing on food safety. This included coloring books on food safety and proper hand washing techniques. The Cornell University Food Safety laboratory Laboratory partnered with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ontario County and 4-H Camp Bristol Hills to provide a week long food science and food safety program as part of the 4-H Camp Bristol Hills during summer 2012. Educational activities focused on the nature of science, dairy product development, and a simulated outbreak investigation. The 4-H Food Science Camp provided over 16 hours of hands-on educational activities in the areas of chemistry, biology, microbiology, and geographic information systems and landscape ecology. A university professor and graduate student engaged campers in experiments and case studies where they discovered, modeled, and compared the chemical interactions between ingredients in ice cream, butter and cheese; reconstructed the structure of DNA; practiced the steps of an outbreak investigation during a mock "food-borne disease outbreak;" and developed solutions to minimize the risk of future outbreaks. Twelve campers between the ages of 9-15 participated in the 4-H Food Science Camp. Program evaluations identified:
One camper stated the activity she liked best was "the outbreak investigation since it allowed us to act like genuine food scientists in conducting an experiment." Another camper felt the most important thing she learned was "how to properly diagnose a problem in the field of science."
Cornell University hosted the Food Safety 4H Career Explorations workshop for high school students in June 2012. Andrea Moreno Switt, Food Science graduate student at Cornell University, participated in one activity of the AVID program at Ithaca High School on February 17th. AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) is a college-readiness system designed to increase the number of students who enroll in four-year colleges. In this activity I talked with 14 students from 11am-1pm about food safety and my research with Salmonella. Students rotated in stations of grad students from different fields. |
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