Progress 02/01/13 to 01/31/14
Outputs
Target Audience: Target audiences include K-12 teachers and students, undergraduate and graduate students as well as other academic researchers that provide training opportunities in food safety. Additionally, this program also targets potential employees of graduates with food safety training in government and industry. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? This project has a major overall focus on training and professional development, as detailed in the above section entitled “What was accomplished under these goals?”. For example, under aim 1, professional development opportunities were provided for a large number of middle and high school teachers that participated in our workshops. Under general aim 3, eight undergraduate students with interests in food safety were provided training and professional development through the 2013 food safety summer scholar program, which had participants at Texas Wesleyan, Texas Tech, North Carolina State, and Cornell. Under aim 5, we are also developing and facilitating professional development through food safety related internships in industry and government; for example, a Cornell graduate student with a food safety emphasis has completed an international internship in Kenya in 2013. Across all aims, graduate students have participated actively in various program activities, providing important training and professional development for them, which will facilitate their future careers in food safety. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Results have been disseminated through presentations at professional meetings (e.g., the annual IAFP meetings) as well as through the Food Safety Wiki, which has been specifically developed for this project (see https://confluence.cornell.edu/display/FOODSAFETY/). What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Activities contributing to all five aims will continue during the next reporting period. We specifically plan to conduct teacher’s workshop in New York, North Carolina, and Alabama and to offer food safety activities for K-12 students in the same states. We will again offer the food safety summer scholar program and plan to recruit 4 to 6 students. For aim 4, we plan to complete a competency prioritization study.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
This project has continued to reach a large number of high school teachers and students, creating awareness about food safety careers and challenges and recruiting individuals into food safety related career paths. The project also provides extensive food safety training of undergraduate and graduates, for careers in industry, government, and academia. Importantly, in the reporting period we organized a symposium entitled “Food safety Education: The value of education and outreach to advancing the development of future food safety leaders”, which was part of the 2013 Annual Meeting of the International Association of Food Protection. This symposium not only highlighted findings from this project, but also communicated the importance of food safety education programs in general to a wide audience. Full details of accomplishments can be accessed through dedicated project WWW pages that are part of the Food Safety Wiki that has been developed for this project; see https://confluence.cornell.edu/display/FOODSAFETY/National+Food+Safety+Education+Program+Grant; due to space restrictions, the following section only contains key highlights of accomplishments. Under the general aim 1 (“Develop and conduct science teachers’ workshops that enable the teachers to use food safety experiments and advise students on careers in food safety”), a number of workshops were conducted at Cornell, North Carolina, Alabama A&M University, and Texas Wesleyan. For example, Cornell (i) facilitated a for middle school teacher food safety workshop through the Cornell Institute for Biology Teachers summer program (July 10th and 11th, 2013); 20 middle school teachers throughout New York participated in the workshop, which provided information how to implement food safety related scientific exercises in their classrooms. Teachers were given a brief introduction to food safety by Dr. Martin Wiedmann before being presented with a mock outbreak scenario. At the conclusion of the workshop, teachers were provided resources and guidance for incorporating the various food safety related science activities in their curricula. North Carolina A&T (i) held a 2h food safety and preparation workshop, for an audience that included high school teachers, at Wesley Chapel AME Zion Church, Asheboro (Aug 17, 2013); and (ii) held a Career and Technical Education (CTE) Summer Conference for Family and Consumer Sciences Education on July 24, 2013 at Koury Convention Center in Greensboro, NC; this workshop focused on helping teachers gain basic knowledge in the area of food science including food safety/ practices, basic issues related to food microbiology and basic understanding of food protection and defense. Alabama A&M University hosted a one-day “Teaching Science through Food Science” workshop for Middle and High School Science Teachers on June 27, 2013; 10 teachers attended and were provided protocols for experiments to be used in their classrooms. NC State partnered with North Carolina Central University’s Biomanufacturing Research Institute and Technology Enterprise (BRITE) facility in Durham, NC, to present a norovirus learning module to 25 high school students on July 24, 2013. The BRITE Futures program collaborates with educational leaders from universities and K-12 teachers to foster North Carolina’s understanding of scientific concepts and skills. A second workshop was held on August 8, 2013, for 21 middle school and high school teachers. Texas Wesleyan University held its third annual Teaching Food Safety Workshop for High School Science Teachers on July 29th, 2013; seven teachers attended the workshop. Collaborators at Purdue presented a poster entitled “Introducing High School Students to Food Safety Microbiology Research Methods in a Hands-on Laboratory Setting” at University College of Agriculture PK-12 Engagement and Outreach Showcase; this poster outlined the successful collaborations with a local high school to include food safety research in advanced science curriculum. Interested teachers, counselors, and administrators were invited to take an example syllabus and develop relationships with Purdue researchers for future collaborations. Under aim 2, entitled “Develop and deliver K-12 food safety activities and experiments to be taught by graduate and undergraduate students”, Cornell, North Carolina A&T, Alabama A&M, and Purdue conducted various workshops and other activities. For example, Cornell hosted the 2.5 day 4-H Career Explorations workshop entitled “Food Science: DNA Fingerprinting”, June 25-27, 2013. Graduate students and staff from Cornell also hosted a booth for the science fair at an Ithaca, NY elementary school on February 1, 2013. This booth engaged approximately 300 students from pre-kindergarten to fifth grade in interactive educational activities focusing on food safety and food science. Cornell also 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 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 key part of this camp was a mock “food-borne disease outbreak” investigation. Alabama A&M University hosted hands-on workshops for 93 Students (elementary, middle and high school) June 20, 2013; these workshops focused on Food Science and the importance of food safety. Alabama A&M University also hosted a 4-week (June 1-July 3rd) food science summer program during 2013 for 30 high school students (9-12 grades). The program emphasized food microbiology and safety. Students (in groups) completed projects and gave presentations on summer research entitled “Microbiological profile of fresh produce from various retail stores. North Carolina A&T State University hosted a four-week Research Apprenticeship Program (RAP) for current or rising high school juniors and seniors during summer 2013 and also put on 4 food safety events at different high schools. Under aim 3 (“Develop and conduct a multi-institutional undergraduate summer research program in food safety”), eight undergraduate students with interests in food safety participated in the 2013 food safety summer scholar program activities at Texas Wesleyan, Texas Tech, North Carolina State, and Cornell. Under aim 4 (“Recruit and train undergraduate students through a “food safety track” within existing food science undergraduate programs”), we completed development of core competencies for an Undergraduate Food Safety Curriculum and published this information in the peer reviewed Journal of Food Science Education. These core competencies have been used to develop the “Food safety Concentration” at Cornell and are available for others to develop similar programs. Under aim 5 (“Develop and implement multi-institutional course-based Masters of Professional Studies (MPS), research-based M.S., and Ph.D. training programs in food safety”), Cornell, Purdue, Texas Tech, and North Carolina State taught a case based multi-institutional graduate level food safety course in the spring of 2013. Materials from this course are freely available at the Food Safety Wiki; selected case study materials from this course were also used by Dr. Teresa Bergholz at North Dakota State University for MICR 453 ("Food Microbiology").
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Johnston, L. M., M. Wiedmann, A. Orta-Ramirez, H. F. Oliver, K. K. Nightingale, C. M. Moore, C. D. Stevenson, and L.-A. Jaykus. 2014. Identification of Core Competencies for an Undergraduate Food Safety Curriculum Using a Modified Delphi Approach. J. Food Sci. Educ. 13(1):12-21
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Johnston, L. M., M. Wiedmann, A. Orta-Ramirez, H. F. Oliver, K. K. Nightingale, and L.-A. Jaykus. 2013. Identification of Core Competencies for an Undergraduate Food Safety Curriculum Using a Modified Delphi Approach. International Association of Food Protection Annual Meeting, Charlotte, NC, July 18-31, 2013 (poster presentation)
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Chapin, T. 2013. Use of food safety modules to improve population food safety practices and recruit students into food safety careers. International Association of Food Protection Annual Meeting, Charlotte, NC, July 18-31, 2013 (oral presentation)
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Progress 02/01/12 to 01/31/13
Outputs
Target Audience: Target audiences include K-12 teachers and students, undergraduate and graduate students as well as other academic researchers that provide training opportunities in food safety. Additionally, this program also targets potential employees of graduates with food safety training in government and industry. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? This project has a major overall focus on training and professional development, as detailed in the above section entitled “What was accomplished under these goals?”. For example, under aim 1, professional development opportunities were provided for a large number of middle and high school teachers that participated in our workshops. Under general aim 3, six undergraduate students with interests in food safety were provided training and professional development through the 2012 food safety summer scholar program, which had participants at Purdue, Texas Tech, and Cornell. Under aim 5, we are also developing and facilitating professional development through food safety related internships in industry and government; for example, Cornell graduate students with a food safety emphasis have completed an international internships and experiences, including in Thailand, Mexico, and Kenya. Across all aims, graduate students have participated actively in various program activities, providing important training and professional development for them, which will facilitate their future careers in food safety. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Results have been disseminated through presentations at professional meetings (e.g., the annual IAFP meetings) as well as through the Food Safety Wiki, which has been specifically developed for this project (see https://confluence.cornell.edu/display/FOODSAFETY/). What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Activities contributing to all five aims will continue during the next reporting period. We specifically plan to conduct teacher’s workshop in New York, North Carolina, and Alabama and to offer food safety activities for K-12 students in the same states. We will again offer the food safety summer scholar program and plan to recruit 4 to 6 students. For aim 4, we plan to complete development of core competencies for an undergraduate food safety program using a modified Delphi approach; this will facilitate further implementation of food safety undergraduate concentrations in different programs throughout the US.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
This project has reached a large number of high school teachers and students, creating awareness about food safety careers and challenges and recruiting individuals into food safety related career paths. The project also has provides extensive food safety training of undergraduate and graduates, providing advanced training for careers in industry, government, and academia. Full details of accomplishments can be accessed through dedicated project WWW pages that are part of the Food Safety Wiki that has been developed for this project; see https://confluence.cornell.edu/display/FOODSAFETY/National+Food+Safety+Education+Program+Grant; due to space restrictions, the following section only contains key highlights of accomplishments. Under the general aim 1 (“Develop and conduct science teachers’ workshops that enable the teachers to use food safety experiments and advise students on careers in food safety”), a number of workshops were conducted at Cornell, North Carolina, Alabama A&M University, and Texas Wesleyan. For example, Cornell (i) hosted a food safety workshop for thirteen high school science teachers from across New York State on July 24-25, 2012; (ii) held a 2 h food safety workshop during the 2012 Conference of the New York Association of Agricultural Educators on June 24, 2012 in Croghan, NY (attended by 40 high school teachers, and (iii) presented an interactive workshop on Food Science and Food Safety Investigations in the Classroom for middle and high school chemistry, life science, and nutrition and consumer science teachers from Harford County Public Schools on April 28, 2012. North Carolina State University (i) presented a learning module titled, “Outbreak! Attack of the Norovirus!” at NC A&T University’s Golden Leaf Summer Academy Teacher Workshop in Greensboro, NC on June 19, 2012 (attended by 52 middle and high school teachers) and (ii) held a similar workshop on August 8, 2012 at North Carolina Central University’s Biomanufacturing Research Institute and Technology Enterprise (BRITE) facility in Durham, NC (with 25 participants). Under the general aim 2, entitled “Develop and deliver K-12 food safety activities and experiments to be taught by graduate and undergraduate students”, Cornell, North Carolina A&T, Alabama A&M, and Purdue conducted various workshops and other activities that reached more than 750 individuals. For example, Cornell hosted a food safety booth at the New York State Fair on August 28th, 2012, which reached more 150. Cornell also 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 the summer of 2012. Alabama A&M conducted hands-on food safety, microbiology activities in local high and middle schools (Columbia High School, Chapman Middle School, Challenger Middle School, Lee High School); a total of 496 students who participated in these activities. Under the general aim3 (“Develop and conduct a multi-institutional undergraduate summer research program in food safety”), six undergraduate students with interests in food safety participated in the 2012 food safety summer scholar program activities at Purdue, Texas Tech, and Cornell. Under the general aim 4 (“Recruit and train undergraduate students through a “food safety track” within existing food science undergraduate programs”), the Department of Food Science at Cornell University has recently added a dedicated Food Safety concentration to their food science undergraduate program and has actively increased internship opportunities in food safety for undergraduate students. Under the general aim 5 (“Develop and implement multi-institutional course-based Masters of Professional Studies (MPS), research-based M.S., and Ph.D. training programs in food safety”), Cornell, Purdue, Texas Tech, and North Carolina State developed a case based multi-institutional graduate level food safety course, first taught in the spring of 2013. Cornell also has developed and expanded its professional master's degree (MPS) recruiting students to pursue training in food safety.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2011
Citation:
Oliver, H. F., L. T. Esters, E. McKenzie, M. Wiedmann, and K. K. Nightingale. 2011. Introduction of molecular methods for foodborne pathogen detection into an undergraduate food science curriculuma pilot study. International Association for Food Protection 2011 Annual Meeting, Milwaukee, WI. July 31-August 3, 2011 (oral presentation).
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2012
Citation:
Van Stelten, A., S. Warchoki, K. Nightingale, and M. Wiedmann.2012. Development of The Food Safety Wiki aims to provide comprehensive information and resources about food safety education. International Association for Food Protection 2012 Annual Meeting, July 22-25, 2012, Providence, RI
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Progress 02/01/11 to 01/31/12
Outputs
OUTPUTS: As career opportunities and undergraduate majors in Food Science and Food Safety are largely unrecognized by most K-12 educators and their students, the number of graduates from Food Science and Food Safety undergraduate and graduate programs remains low, limiting the number of well-trained and diverse food safety professionals available for employment. The goal of this project is to develop a multi-institutional and multidisciplinary program to create and conduct innovative research and classroom-based graduate and undergraduate training activities in food safety. Outputs from this project during the current reporting period have occurred in four project aims. (1) Develop and conduct science teachers' workshops that enable the teachers to use food safety experiments and advise students on careers in food safety: Cornell held its first high school teachers' workshop with 9 attendees in October 22; held a workshop session on food safety with 20 attendees for the Cornell Institute of Biology Teachers in January 2012; and presented two back-to-back sessions entitled "Introducing Food Safety Investigation in the Science Classroom" at the 2011 Science Teachers Association of New York State (STANYS) conference in November. NCA&TSU held a one day six hour introductory food science/food safety hands-on preconference with 11 attendees in July 2011 as part of the North Carolina Family and Consumer Sciences Education Summer Conference and participated in a workshop for family and consumer science teachers in January 2012. Texas Wesleyan University hosted a one-day "Teaching Food Safety Workshop" for High School Science Teachers in August 2011. Alabama A&M University also participated in multiple food science sessions with high school teachers and students during the Fall 2011 semester. (2) Develop and deliver K-12 food safety activities and experiments to be taught by graduate and undergraduate students: Activities under this aim included a food safety booth in the 4-H Youth Building at the New York State Fair in 2011 (engaged over 600 people) as well as a two and a half day Food Safety workshop as part of the 4H Career Explorations conference at Cornell June 28-30. (3) Develop and conduct a multi-institutional undergraduate summer research program in food safety: Five undergraduate students with interests in food safety participated in the 2011 Cornell Summer Undergraduate Research Program; three undergraduate students participated in a five-week Food Safety Summer Scholars Program at Texas Wesleyan University, and two undergraduates participated in a similar summer program at NCA&T. (4) Recruit and train undergraduate students through a "food safety track" within existing food science undergraduate programs: We have initiated development of dedicated food safety curricula at both Cornell and NC State and anticipate implementation of these curricula in 2012/13. Full details of program outcomes can be accessed through dedicated project WWW pages that are part of the Food Safety Wiki that has been developed for this project; see https://confluence.cornell.edu/display/FOODSAFETY/National+Food+Safet y+Education+Program+Grant. PARTICIPANTS: Individuals who worked on project as directors and co-directors include Martin Wiedmann, Project Director and Kathryn J. Boor, Co-PD, both at Cornell University; Kendra K. Nightingale, Co-PD, originally at Colorado State University and now at Texas Tech University, Haley F. Oliver, Co-PD at Purdue University, Lee-Ann Jaykus, Co-PD at North Carolina State University; Martha Verghese, Co-PD at Alabama A&M University, Salam Ibrahim, Co-PD at North Carolina A & T State University, Angela J. Roberts, Co-PD at Texas Wesleyan University. In addition, Travis Chapin and Rachel Pfuntner, both graduate students at Cornell University and Anna Van Stelten, originally at Colorado State University and now at Texas Tech also participated in this project and obtained training as part of this project. Peter Bergholz and Steven Warchocki also provided project support and coordination. Key partner organizations and collaborators in Year 1, in addition to the seven collaborating universities, include 4H organizations as well as the Science Teachers Association of New York State (STANYS). TARGET AUDIENCES: Target audiences include K-12 teachers and students, undergraduate and graduate students as well as other academic researchers that provide training opportunities in food safety. Additionally, this program also targets potential employees of graduates with food safety training in government and industry. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.
Impacts
Outcomes from this project over the reporting year (i.e., project year 1) include improved food safety knowledge of (i) science teachers, (ii) K-12 students, and (iii) parents, which were all reached through workshops as well as other project activities detailed under "Outputs". In particular these groups have become aware of food safety as a professional field, which will likely increase interest in undergraduate programs in food safety and food science. In addition, undergraduate students participating in food safety summer research projects have been trained in food safety research, changing their knowledge and preparing them for careers or graduate education in food safety. As a number of undergraduate students that have participated in the summer undergraduate research programs offered as part of this project have not had prior exposure to food safety or food safety research, this project also has created new knowledge about the field of food safety, which will increase applications to food safety graduate programs, thus further strengthening the food safety training pipeline. Through this program we have also established food safety undergraduate summer programs at institutions where these programs have not previously existed, which represents a key change in conditions that will facilitate continued efforts to expand recruitment into the field of food safety. Through this project we have also actively recruited schools throughout the US to use the "PathogenTracker Game", an on-line computer game that shows how foodborne disease outbreaks are investigated; this game has been used by a number of school districts, allowing us to reach districts that may not be able to participate in other project activities. Use of this game provides another opportunity to increase knowledge of food safety as a discipline and career to students that may not be aware of this. As part of this project we also developed a Food Safety Wikipedia ("Wiki"), which represents a unique new information resource that facilitates communication about food safety training, thus allowing interested individuals to identify training opportunities in different area of food safety. This Wiki specifically lists different universities and programs that offer food safety training and also details specific research and training interests present in a given institution. The overall organization of this Wiki allows interested individuals to search for food safety training opportunities by institution (e.g., "University of Maryland"), organism of interest (e.g., Listeria monocytogenes), or general research area (e.g., "Meat and Poultry Food Safety"). This resource is also set up to allow all interested parties (not just project collaborators) to add information.
Publications
- Wiedmann, M., R. Pfuntner, T. Chapin, K.J. Boor, K.K. Nightingale, H.F. Oliver, L.A. Jaykus, M. Verghese, S. Ibrahim, and A.J. Roberts. 2011. A National Food Safety Education Program: Building a Multidisciplinary Food Safety Training Pipeline from K-12 to Graduate School Cornell. 2011 NRI/AFRI Food Safety Programs Project Director's Meeting. July 30, 2011, Milwaukee, WI
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