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Cornell University presented, "Food Safety Education: The value of K-12 education and outreach to advancing the development of future food safety leaders," at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the International Association for Food Protection. The meeting was held in Charlotte, North Carolina from July 18-31, 2013. Please see the abstract below: 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. Cornell University hosted the 4-H Career Explorations Food Science: DNA Fingerprinting again this past summer. This 2.5 day workshop for high school students was held June 25-27, 2013 on the Cornell Campus. Cornell Food Science at the Beverly J. Martin Elementary School Science Fair: Graduate students and staff from Cornell University's Department of Food Science hosted a booth for the science fair at an Ithaca, NY elementary school on February 1st, 2013. Cornell University's Food Science booth engaged approximately 300 students from pre-kindergarten to fifth grade in interactive educational activities focusing on food safety and food science. The Cornell University Food Safety Laboratory partnered with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ontario County and 4-H Camp Bristol Hills to provide week long food science and food safety program as part of the 4-H Camp Bristol Hills during summer 2013. 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. |
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