Source: NORTH CAROLINA A&T STATE UNIV submitted to NRP
A BIOCHEMISTRY TEACHING LABORATORY TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ FOOD SCIENCE EDUCATION
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
COMPLETE
Funding Source
OTHER GRANTS
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1021765
Grant No.
2020-38821-31113
Cumulative Award Amt.
$149,987.00
Proposal No.
2019-03245
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Jun 1, 2020
Project End Date
May 31, 2024
Grant Year
2020
Program Code
[EP]- Teaching Project
Recipient Organization
NORTH CAROLINA A&T STATE UNIV
1601 EAST MARKET STREET
GREENSBORO,NC 27411
Performing Department
Family and Consumer Sciences
Non Technical Summary
Food and Nutritional Sciences (FNS) undergraduates enrolled in advanced courses are unprepared to grasp the link between biochemistry and food science. The goal of this project is thus to enhance the capacity of the FNS program at N.C. A&T to deliver contextualized biochemistry instruction using up-to-date biochemistry instrumentation. By enhancing the quality of teaching in the area of biochemistry, this project will strengthen the capacity of the FNS program to recruit students and help them graduate with the skills to become FNS professionals. The outcome will lead to an increase in the cultural diversity of the Food, Agriculture, Natural Resources and Human Sciences scientific and professional workforce. By facilitating experiential opportunities, the new core facility will strengthen FNS program linkages with industry and academia. This project supports the long-term goals of the University and College to foster excellence in teaching and to support student success and helps meet the USDA/NIFA goal of ensuring the development of human capital, communities, and a diverse workforce. This initiative is strongly supported by the FNS program, N.C.A&T, food scientists, and the food industry.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
7017299302050%
7115010100050%
Knowledge Area
711 - Ensure Food Products Free of Harmful Chemicals, Including Residues from Agricultural and Other Sources; 701 - Nutrient Composition of Food;

Subject Of Investigation
7299 - Research equipment and methods, general/other; 5010 - Food;

Field Of Science
3020 - Education; 1000 - Biochemistry and biophysics;
Goals / Objectives
Currently, the Food and Nutritional Sciences (FNS) program teaching laboratories in the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences (CAES) at N.C. A & T have none of the scientific instrumentation required for teaching up-to-date biochemistry methods related to the field of FNS. More hands-on instruction using up-to-date scientific instrumentation is required to teach biochemistry in a way that contextualizes biochemistry content to food science and human nutrition. This project seeks funding to purchase scientific instruments to enhance the capacity of the FNS program to teach biochemistry in a contextualized manner.The new instrumentation would support hands-on training in pertinent biochemistry techniques used routinely in industry and academia, be used as a resource to design learning experiences to enhance FNS courses, and facilitate experiential opportunities in biochemistry for students in the FNS program. In this way, this project will strengthen and enhance the quality of teaching/education at N.C. A&T to more readily establish them as full partners in the U.S. Food, Agriculture, Natural Resources and Human (FANH) sciences higher education system. By enhancing student understanding of FNS biochemistry content and offering a higher quality education to FNS students, this project will strengthen the capacity of the FNS program and help in graduating fully trained under-represented minority (URM) students with the capacity to become FNS professionals. Notably, African-Americans are significantly under-represented in the STEM sciences in the United States (Landivar, 2013). The cultural diversity of the FANH sciences scientific and professional workforce will increase as a result of this project's successful implementation. By improving FNS education, this project helps meet USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) mission goal of ensuring the development of human capital, communities, and a diverse workforce. In addition, by creating the capacity to facilitate student experiential learning opportunities, this program will strengthen linkages with private industry, other 1890s, and other academic institutions. As an initiative designed to improve biochemistry education, facilitate experiential opportunities and build ties with industry and academia, this project supports the Goal #2 of University's strategic plan, A&T Preeminence 2023, which emphasizes the importance of fostering Excellent Teaching, Research, Public Service and Engagement, and Goal #6 of achieving Excellence in Academic Effectiveness and Efficiency. In addition, because of its cross disciplinary approach, this project supports the CAES 2018-2023 Strategic Plan that underlines the importance of promoting teaching excellence and pedagogical innovations that increase student success across all disciplines.The goal of this project is to enhance the capacity of the FNS program to deliver contextualized biochemistry instruction at N.C. A & T.This goal will be accomplished by accomplishing the following objectives:Upgrading our FNS teaching laboratory with the necessary up-to-date scientific instrumentation for teaching biochemistry concepts within the FNS context.Enhancing several FNS courses by incorporating meaningful hands-on learning experiences that convey complex food science related biochemistry concepts and techniques.3. Establishing an upgraded laboratory that will serve as a core facility for training FNS students, staff, and faculty in up-to-date biochemistry techniques, for facilitating experiential experiences, and for supporting future educational initiatives.
Project Methods
Overall project management will be carried out by Dr. Ibrahim. The project team will design hands-on learning experiences based on the new instrumentation that will emphasize food biochemistry concepts. These new learning experiences will be incorporated into the following upper division FNS courses: experimental foods, food chemistry, food safety and sanitation and food analysis. This new instrumentation will include an HPLC, a GC/MS system and a Western blot semi-dry blotting system. FNS courses will be enhanced with learning experiences emphasizing on the biochemical properties of food (e.g., structure and function of fatty acids studied via GC/MS or HPLC), health benefits of food, food safety concerns (e.g. microbial burden tested via enzymatic techniques), identification techniques (Western blot identification of source materials) and the roleof advance instrumentation in food industry.Experiences will include the following:How fermentation conditions modulate metabolic output and protein expression.Using antibodies to detect the source of food components.Employing modern chromatographic techniques to identify and quantify beneficial oligosaccharides.Using enzymatic techniques as food quality control tools to quantify and identify food components such as sucrose, glucose, cholesterol, protein, vitamins, amino acids and lipids.Assessing food safety by quantifying pesticide residues.Using antibodies to detect peanut and gluten allergens and toxins.Assessing the microbial burden of food using enzymatic techniques.Assessing freshness of food using enzymatic techniques.Chromatographic separation of pigments from green leafy vegetables.Hands-on learning experiencesDrs. Tahergorabi and Faulkner will be responsible for the lesson plan design including development of all protocols, written online and video materials, including homework and student guides and for training the graduate and undergraduate students in the necessary techniques, use of instrumentation and laboratory session protocol steps. Each experience will have the following structure: 1) lecture videos; 2) online pre-laboratory homework material; 3) in-class discussion session; 4) lab instructional videos; (5) in-person laboratory session (6) student presentationsThe experiences will follow the predict-observe-explain (POE) structure (White & Gunstone, 1992) which is an effective way to stimulate learning. Under this model, students will be asked to hypothesize about a phenomenon (e.g. enzyme activity, antigen levels) before actually carrying out the task (predict). Theywill thenmake observations during a hands-on task (observe). The students are then required to make sense of the data in reference of their previous hypothesis (explain). In our case, the theoretical information will be provided in the lecture videos and the hypothesis construction will occur during the homework and in-class discussion session. The students are required to write a laboratory report, which includes the hypothesis and methodology. All video and written materials will be available online to the students.Importantly, the learning objectives of each experiment will cover all levels of Blooms' taxonomy model, For example, the "Remembering" and "Understanding" learning objectives (LO's) will be fulfilled by assessing student understanding of the material imparted via the lecture and lab instructional videos and discussion sessions. Appropriate assessment methods will be developed for evaluating each LO. Students will carry out the experiments using GC/MS, HPLC, Western blot during the "Apply" learning objectives and "Evaluate" and "Analyze" the results from these experiments.During every learning experiment, students will be encouraged to use real-world commercial industrial products they are familiar with to solve problems. For comparison purposes, the instructor will always predefine a positive control for comparative purposes. For example, in a study of peanut allergens, students would be encouraged to select a product whose packaging contains the peanut allergy warning and that the product was produced using the same machinery as nut products. This will allow students to determine a real-world question of how much peanut allergen is really found in these products in order to assess which of these products should be avoided due to food safety concerns. The positive control would be peanuts.Importantly, students will learn to formulate, design, and carry out food-based laboratory investigations as essential project components. Students will be able to apply the principles of scientific inquiry to solve problems related to biochemistry in the context of state-of-the art, industry-standard biochemistry tools.Lecture VideosIn a way reminiscent of the flipped learning method, Dr. Tahergorabi will produce the lecture videos that will be accessible to students via YouTube. Students will also be provided with written student guides as accompanying material. The student guide will contain sections that allow students to design experiments in an interactive fashion. These lectures will include the background factual and conceptual information necessary to understand the laboratory portion of the experience. YouTube instructional videos have been shown to be effective in transferring skills to students (Fleck, 2014) and is a well-known online forum that is highly accessible and familiar to students.Online pre-experience homeworkStudents will be required to complete homework tasks before attending the in-person laboratory session. This will ensure that the material presented will be reinforced and will encourage students to develop testable hypotheses before carrying out the hands-on work. All written material will be delivered to students via Blackboard, which is already being used in FNS.In person- discussion SessionHaving watched the lecture videos, read the course material and completed the homework tasks (which will have prompted the student to determine a hypotheses), the students will then attend discussion sections in which homework answers and hypothesis construction will occur. Dr. Tahergorabi will chair these discussion sessions where he will function as "facilitators" to encourage students to express their ideas, while providing further factual and conceptual information. The facilitators will seek to achieve a consensus of one to two hypotheses and then lead discussions on how the hypotheses can be tested (e.g., via what methods and using which controls). The students will then be prompted to record their hypotheses, design in-lab reports and be prompted to watch laboratory instructional videos.Laboratory Instructional VideosThe students will watch a video of an undergraduate student explaining how the relevant techniques are performed in step-by-step laboratory instructional videos. Some of theFNS undergraduate students will be trained earlierin the relevant assays and then serve as the online peer instructor.In-person laboratory sessionA graduate teaching assistant will be the instructor for the in-person laboratory session, under the supervision of Drs. Zimmerman and Tahergorabi. The same undergraduate student that appeared in the laboratory instructional video will serve as a peer instructor. The graduate student and the undergraduate peer instructor will review all technical and safety procedures viewed in the lab instructional videos and with the assistance and guidance of the instructors, students will proceed to the experiments in groups of two to three students. Data will be recorded in lab reports for later analysis and interpretation.

Progress 06/01/20 to 05/31/24

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audiences for our project are: Undergraduate and graduate students in food and nutritional science program/ animal sciences and the college of agriculture and environmental sciences at NCA&TSU Students from biological and chemical fields Middle and high school students in North Carolina Middle and high school teachers in North Carolina Family and consumer science teachers Researchers and scientists in the field of food sciences The food industry and related field The dairy and food industry Federal agencies such as FDA and USDA Changes/Problems:This project has faced serious challenges since we started a few years ago. The COVID pandemic was the first challenge, and we could not start the project as planned. In addition, Carver Hall had major renovation, and we could not access the laboratory. In addition, we have been trying to hire a scientist to work on the project but faced several challenges and unable to locate individuals to work on this project. However, with the support from the food industry and other academic institutions, we were able to develop several laboratory exercises to train high school students and teachers in the area of food science. We also started to use some of these exercises in food science courses. The main outcomes from this project are: Establishment of food safety, quality and protection certificate Provide opportunities for students and scientists and attend workshops and conferences related to food science, chemistry and biochemistry. Add several laboratory activities to food science courses based on using biochemistry approaches (food microbiology, food product development and food safety). The research team received national award related to product development. The team attended the AAAS conferences in Washington 2022, 2023 and 2024. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This project has created an outstanding opportunity for our students, lab ,manager and scientists to attend several training activities related to chemistry and biochemistry in food Science; for example our team attended the local, regional and the national American chemical society conferences (at least 10 conferences), we attended several workshops and training in the field of biochemistry. Our students attended the national food science conferences 2023-2024 and they will attend the 2025 in Chicago, this is one of the food science conferences, they attended supply side east and west show, they attended fancy food shows. All research team receive the training certificate in food science and safety and serve safe foods/ How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The major dissemination activities were the weekly farmer market activity (summer 2022-2024). Our team have worked with the local farmers and conduct one day training and demonstrations related to food safety, safe food handling and product development (Greensboro farmer market). What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Currently, the Food and Nutritional Sciences (FNS) program teaching laboratories in the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences (CAES) at N.C. A & T have none of the scientific instrumentation required for teaching up-to-date biochemistry methods related to the field of FNS. More hands-on instruction using up-to-date scientific instrumentation is required to teach biochemistry in a way that contextualizes biochemistry content to food science and human nutrition. This project seeks funding to purchase scientific instruments to enhance the capacity of the FNS program to teach biochemistry in a contextualized manner. The new instrumentation would support hands-on training in pertinent biochemistry techniques used routinely in industry and academia, be used as a resource to design learning experiences to enhance FNS courses, and facilitate experiential opportunities in biochemistry for students in the FNS program. In this way, this project will strengthen and enhance the quality of teaching/education at N.C. A&T to more readily establish them as full partners in the U.S. Food, Agriculture, Natural Resources and Human (FANH) sciences higher education system. By enhancing student understanding of FNS biochemistry content and offering a higher quality education to FNS students, this project will strengthen the capacity of the FNS program and help in graduating fully trained under-represented minority (URM) students with the capacity to become FNS professionals. Notably, African-Americans are significantly under-represented in the STEM sciences in the United States (Landivar, 2013). The cultural diversity of the FANH sciences scientific and professional workforce will increase as a result of this project's successful implementation. By improving FNS education, this project helps meet USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) mission goal of ensuring the development of human capital, communities, and a diverse workforce. In addition, by creating the capacity to facilitate student experiential learning opportunities, this program will strengthen linkages with private industry, other 1890s, and other academic institutions. As an initiative designed to improve biochemistry education, facilitate experiential opportunities and build ties with industry and academia, this project supports the Goal #2 of University's strategic plan, A&T Preeminence 2023, which emphasizes the importance of fostering Excellent Teaching, Research, Public Service and Engagement, and Goal #6 of achieving Excellence in Academic Effectiveness and Efficiency. In addition, because of its cross disciplinary approach, this project supports the CAES 2018-2023 Strategic Plan that underlines the importance of promoting teaching excellence and pedagogical innovations that increase student success across all disciplines. The goal of this project is to enhance the capacity of the FNS program to deliver contextualized biochemistry instruction at N.C. A & T. This goal will be accomplished by accomplishing the following objectives: 1. Upgrading our FNS teaching laboratory with the necessary up-to-date scientific instrumentation for teaching biochemistry concepts within the FNS context. 2. Enhancing several FNS courses by incorporating meaningful hands-on learning experiences that convey complex food science related biochemistry concepts and techniques. 3. Establishing an upgraded laboratory that will serve as a core facility for training FNS students, staff, and faculty in upto-date biochemistry techniques, for facilitating experiential experiences, and for supporting future educational initiatives. What was accomplished under these goals? The goal of this project is to enhance the capacity of the FNS program to deliver contextualized biochemistry instruction. This goal will be accomplished by accomplishing the following objectives: 1. Upgrading our FNS teaching laboratory with the necessary up-to-date scientific instrumentation for teaching biochemistry concepts within the FNS context. 2. Enhancing several FNS courses by incorporating meaningful hands-on learning experiences that convey complex food science related biochemistry concepts and techniques. 3. Establishing an upgraded laboratory that will serve as a core facility for training FNS students, staff, and faculty in Up to Date biochemistry techniques, for facilitating experiential experiences, and for supporting future educational initiatives. Currently, We developed several laboratory exercises related to applying biochemistry knowledge in food science courses. Six different laboratory exercises are developed and are currently part of food science courses: Food microbiology, food safety, food chemistry and food analysis, special problems in food sciences. In addition, we are working with different food industries to develop new educational materials related to the new technology used in the industry for product development (supplements for nutritional benefits), using spry drying and freeze drying). These laboratory exercises will be used in the coming academic year 2024-2025. The food safety, quality and protection certificate is already established. This certificate for graduate students as well as other from the industry. The certificate requires 15 hr in food science courses. Due to the situation with Carver Hall and the plan to relocate the laboratory to a new location, we have limited progress with the establishment of the educational laboratory. We rely on different laboratories and collaboration with industry and other universities to establish new laboratory exercises using up to date technology

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Siddiqui, S. A., Ngah, N., Wu, Y. S., Kalita, T., Yudhistira, B., & Ibrahim, S. A. (2024). Lab-grown insect meatChemical and biological insightsA comprehensive review. Journal of Insects as Food and Feed, 1(aop), 1-28.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Siddiqui, S. A., Y�ksel, A. N., Ercan, S. S., Manap, A. A., Afzal, S., Wu, Y. S., ... & Ibrahim, S. A. (2024). Edible beetles (Coleoptera) as human fooda comprehensive review. Journal of Insects as Food and Feed, 1(aop), 1-59.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Eddin, A. S., Yeboah, P. J., & Ibrahim, S. A. (2024). Evaluating acidity levels in packaged coffee to enhance product label accuracy. Bioactive Compounds in Health and Disease-Online ISSN: 2574-0334; Print ISSN: 2769-2426, 7(3), 145-151.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Mohammad, Z. H., Ahmad, F., & Ibrahim, S. A. (2024). Biotechnology Approaches to Food Security: Risks and Solutions. In Microbial Biotechnology in the Food Industry: Advances, Challenges, and Potential Solutions (pp. 1-13). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
  • Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2024 Citation: Paidari, S., Esmaeili, Y., Ibrahim, S. A., Vahedi, S., Al-Hilifi, S. A., & Zamindar, N. (2024). Application of Nanoparticles to Enhance the Microbial Quality and Shelf Life of Food Products. In Microbial Biotechnology in the Food Industry: Advances, Challenges, and Potential Solutions (pp. 75-102). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
  • Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2024 Citation: Hajiazizi, F., Sadeghi, A., & Ibrahim, S. (2024). Camelina sativa (L. Crantz) products; an alternative feed ingredient for poultry diets with its nutritional and physiological consequences. Tropical Animal Health and Production, 56(2), 59.


Progress 06/01/22 to 05/31/23

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audiences include undergraduate and graduate students in food and nutritional science program at NC A&TSU, scientists and faculty in different food science program, and food scientists working in industry or government agencies. Changes/Problems:This project has faced serious challenges since we started a few years ago. The COVID pandemic was the first challenge, and we could not start the project as planned. In addition, Carver Hall had major renovation and we could not access the laboratory. In addition, we have been trying to hire a scientist to work on the project but faced several challenges and unable to locate individuals to work on this project. However, with the support from the food industry and other academic institutions, we were able to develop several laboratory exercises to train high school students and teachers in the area of food science. We also started to use some of these exercises in food science courses. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Several professional developments have been accomplished from this project: faculty, scientists and students attended several workshops and training (ACS, ASM, IFT, ADSA) and learn about the use of biochemistry concepts in food science. For example, we visit food company in Tempa Florida and learn about the new technology to produce enzymes for application in foods. we visited companies in Los angles and phoenix, Arizonia and had several demonstrations related to fermentation by yeast and lactic acid bacteria. These experience are used to develop laboratory exercises for food microbiology course. Students also went to NCSU, Virgina Tech and Clemson to learn about the use of different instrumental techniques in food science. Students visited the USDA fermentation laboratory at NCSU and conducted one week training related to organic acid production by lactic acid bacteria. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?This flyer was published to describe the laboratory activities. This is the direct link to your article: https://futurumcareers.com/engaging-with-the-science-behind-food If you click on the images on the right, you'll see that they expand. From this page you can download the article (https://futurumcareers.com/Salam-Ibrahim-Article.pdf) and activity sheet (https://futurumcareers.com/Salam-Ibrahim-Activity-Sheet.pdf) as PDF files. The activity sheet can also be found on the Activity Sheets page (futurumcareers.com/activity-sheets). What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We are currently working to complete the project by May 30, 2024. Objective 3: Establishing an upgraded laboratory that will serve as a core facility for training FNS students, staff, and faculty in upto-date biochemistry techniques, for facilitating experiential experiences, and for supporting future educational initiatives.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The goal of this project is to enhance the capacity of the FNS program to deliver contextualized biochemistry instruction. This goal will be accomplished by accomplishing the following objectives: 1. Upgrading our FNS teaching laboratory with the necessary up-to-date scientific instrumentation for teaching biochemistry concepts within the FNS context. 2. Enhancing several FNS courses by incorporating meaningful hands-on learning experiences that convey complex food science related biochemistry concepts and techniques. 3. Establishing an upgraded laboratory that will serve as a core facility for training FNS students, staff, and faculty in Up to Date biochemistry techniques, for facilitating experiential experiences, and for supporting future educational initiatives. Currently, we are working to complete objective 2 of this project. We developed several laboratory exercises related to applying biochemistry knowledge in food science courses. Six different laboratory exercises are developed and are currently part of food science courses: Food microbiology, food safety, food chemistry and food analysis, special problems in food sciences. In addition, we are working with different food industries to develop new educational materials related to the new technology used in the industry for product development (supplements for nutritional benefits), using spry drying and freeze drying). These laboratory exercises will be used in the coming academic year 2024-2025. The food safety, quality and protection certificate is already established. This certificate for graduate students as well as other from the industry. The certificate requires 15 hr in food science courses. Due to the situation with Carver Hall and the plan to relocate the laboratory to a new location, we have limited progress with the establishment of the educational laboratory. We rely on different laboratories and collaboration with industry and other universities to establish new laboratory exercises using up to date technology.

Publications


    Progress 06/01/21 to 05/31/22

    Outputs
    Target Audience:Target Audience This is an educational project that enhances the teaching capacity of Food and Nutritional Science (FNS) program by incorporating several experiential learning experiences that convey complex food science related biochemistry concepts and techniques. The target audience are the followings: Undergraduate and graduate students in the FNS program, the College of Agriculture and the University. All universities in the state of North Carolina particularly those serving underrepresented minority students. Scientists and faculty at North Carolina A&T State University. Local middle and high school teachers and students who work in science fields and STEM programs. Professionals in the field of education including Family and Consumer Sciences and Agricultural Sciences. Efforts to deliver knowledge: We are currently working with Objective 1: upgrading our Food and Nutritional Science (FNS) laboratory with the necessary up-to-date scientific equipment for teaching our undergraduate and graduate students biochemistry concepts within the food and nutritional science as well as agricultural sciences. In our classroom and lectures, we would like to incorporate basic concepts in chemistry and biochemistry to enhance understanding of FNS concepts. Most of our students have difficulties understanding the FNS concepts related to biochemistry. Therefore, the goal of this project is to improve student understanding of biochemistry concepts in among FNS students by developing educational materials that incorporate these concepts in a food science context. We plan to develop practices experiential learning experiences for the students to understand the basic concepts in foods and food processing such as volatile chemicals that determine taste and smell and include biochemistry concepts such as enzymes, proteins and how these impact food quality, safety, shelf-life and consumer acceptability. We will also incorporate other dairy processing techniques that link food safety with fermentation process. We have conducted a few workshops for local middle and high school teachers and students to teach basic concepts of biochemistry and how they can apply these concepts in food science and fermentation. We developed a few lectures and handouts to help students understand the chemistry of taste and smell. We have also developed new microbiology and yogurt-based biochemistry undergraduate experiential learning opportunities. We currently have 20 undergraduate and 5 graduate students who have gained practical experience working on this project. Changes/Problems:We have faced a few challenges since we started this project. We planned to purchase a few educational equipment to support the activities of this project. However, we subsequently learned that our entire building would be entirely renovated, making setup impossible. We have begun working with our university on finding alternative spaces. Unfortunately, the pandemic has also slowed our progress and we could not complete Objective 1 on schedule. We plan to complete Objectives 1 and 2 in the coming year, once renovation is concluded. In addition, the major construction in Carver Hall has slowed our program. The teaching laboratory is still not available for our team to set up the experimental learning experiences. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?While we have been working with our university to find alternative spaces for the new teaching laboratory as a consequence of the coming building renovations, our research team has worked one-on-one with our undergraduate and graduate students to understand the primary challenges related to the incorporation of biochemistry concepts into the FNS. We had completed over 60 interviews and gathered information to help inform the development of novel learn experiential learning activities that would help support student instruction. We also use this learning experience to establish a few laboratory models, such as: 1. Using yogurt as a food model for teaching the chemistry of smell. 2. Using microbial kinases as targets for antimicrobials. We are currently working on establishing new protein biochemistry laboratory techniques related to food proteins using the new equipment as well as a new yogurt activity in which students will quantify acetaldehyde in commercial yogurt products. We have also introduced PCR and qPCR techniques to our laboratory in order to rapidly identify and quantify species food safety organisms. The scientists and students involved in this project have attended several workshops and training related to modern techniques in fermentation and food microbiology. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Due to the COVID pandemic, we have been very limited in our dissemination activities and have focused mainly on zoom meetings between team members to discuss the projects and the development of new laboratory exercises for our students. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Our plan for the next academic year is to focus on Objectives 1 and 2. Our building will be renovated starting 2023. We also plan to complete the educational manual that will support incorporation of the new materials into the FNS program. This manual will include 7-10 laboratory exercises that incorporate basic biochemistry techniques in a food science context.

    Impacts
    What was accomplished under these goals? The overall goal of this educational project is to enhance the capacity of biochemistry education in the FNS program by incorporating meaningful experiential learning experiences. Objective 1: We are currently working on this objective and are working with our department and the university facilities to find alternative spaces for the new equipment. The building will require major renovations starting 2023. We anticipate the renovation to be completed by the end of 2024. We will delay the purchase of equipment for this reason. We have also developed and implemented several biochemistry and fermentation related experiential activities in a food science context, such as " Linking the taste and smell in yogurt to chemistry" We are currently working on establishing new protein biochemistry laboratory techniques related to food proteins using the new equipment. We have also introduced PCR and qPCR techniques to our laboratory in order to rapidly identify and quantify species of S. aureus. The scientists and students involved in this project have attended several workshops and training related to modern techniques in fermentation and food microbiology. They also attended several food expo and industry workshops. A major achievement is the establishment of the food safety, quality, and protection certificate. This certificate is available to our students at A&T as well as high school teachers and food scientists working in the food industry, it requires a completion of 15 hr in food science courses which include food analysis, food microbiology and food safety.

    Publications


      Progress 06/01/20 to 05/31/21

      Outputs
      Target Audience:This is an educational project that enhances the teaching capacity of Food and Nutritional Science (FNS) program by incorporating several experiential learning experiences that convey complex food science related biochemistry concepts and techniques. The target audience are the followings: Undergraduate and graduate students in the FNS program, the College of Agriculture and the University. All universities in the state of North Carolina particularly those serving underrepresented minority students. Scientists and faculty at North Carolina A&T State University. Local middle and high school teachers and students who work in science fields and STEM programs. Professionals in the field of education including Family and Consumer Sciences and Agricultural Sciences. Efforts to deliver knowledge: We are currently working with Objective 1: upgrading our Food and Nutritional Science (FNS) laboratory with the necessary up-to-date scientific equipment for teaching our undergraduate and graduate students biochemistry concepts within the food and nutritional science as well as agricultural sciences. In our classroom and lectures, we would like to incorporate basic concepts in biochemistry to enhance understanding of FNS concepts.Most of our students have difficulties understanding the FNS concepts related to biochemistry.Therefore, the goal of this project is to improve student understanding of biochemistry concepts in among FNS students by developing educational materials that incorporate these concepts in a food science context. We plan to develop practices experiential learning experiences for the students to understand the basic concepts in foods and food processing such as yogurt making and include biochemistry concepts such as enzymes, proteins and how these impact food quality, safety, shelf-life and consumer acceptability. We will also incorporate other dairy processing techniques that link food safety and fermentation process. We have conducted a few workshops for local middle and high school teachers and students to teach basic concepts of biochemistry and how they can apply these concepts in food science and fermentation. We developed a few lectures and handouts to help students understand fermentation and safety protocols from a biochemistry perspective. We have also developed new microbiology and yogurt-based biochemistry undergraduate experiential learning opportunities. We currently have 25 undergraduate and 5 graduate students who have gained practical experience working on this project. Changes/Problems:We have faced a few challenges since we started this project. We planned to purchase a few educational equipment to support the activities of this project. However, we subsequently learned that we needed to update the electrical wiring in the laboratory in order to provide the correct voltage for the new equipment. We have begun working with our university on the renovation of the laboratory space that includes all the infrastructure required to support the project's task. Unfortunately, the pandemic has also slowed our progress and we could not complete Objective 1 on schedule.We plan to complete Objectives 1 and 2 in the coming year, once renovation is concluded. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?While we have been working with our university on the educational laboratory construction and renovation, our research team hasworked one-on-one with our undergraduate and graduate students to understand the primary challenges related to the incorporation of biochemistry concepts into the FNS. We had completed over 30 interviews and gathered information to help inform the development of novel learn experiential learning activities that would help support student instruction.We also use this learning experience to establish a few laboratory models, such as: Using yogurt as a food model for teaching biochemistry concepts. Using microbial kinases to understand food safety. Using basic microbiology techniques, including aseptic techniques in isolation and handling lactic acid bacteria, to teach food safety concepts We are currently working on establishing new protein biochemistry laboratory techniques related to food proteins using the new equipment.We have also introduced PCR and qPCR techniques to our laboratory in order to rapidly identify and quantify species of L. bulgaricus. The scientists and students involved in this project have attended several workshops and training related to modern techniques in fermentation and food microbiology. They also attended several food expo and industry workshops including the Lactic Acid Bacteria Conference in Netherlands. We also attended virtual IFT and ADSA meetings to present the rationale of our project and our plan of work. We received good feedback and have discussed potential future collaborations with other institutes. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Due to the COVID pandemic, we have been very limited in our dissemination activities and have focused mainly on zoom meetings between team members to discuss the projects and the development of new laboratory exercises for our students. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Our plan for the next academic year is to focus on Objectives 1 and 2.The renovation of food science laboratory is expected to be completed by this fall, which will facilitate the completion of these objectives.We also plan to complete the educational manual that will support incorporation of the new materials into the FNS program. This manual will include 7-10 laboratory exercises that incorporate basic biochemistry techniques in a food science context. We have completed the development of a yogurt model for teaching biochemistry, and we plan to develop another food model to support biochemistry instruction in the FNS program.

      Impacts
      What was accomplished under these goals? The overall goal of this educational project is to enhance the capacity of biochemistry education in the FNS program by incorporating meaningful experiential learning experiences. Objective 1: We are currently working on this objective and are working with our department and the university facilities to update the educational laboratory and complete the renovation.The laboratory requires major renovations and updates to accommodate the new equipment described in the new proposal.We anticipate the renovation to be completed by the end of 2021. We also plan to purchase new instrument this fall and develop the necessary educational protocols for the equipment during the coming year. We have also developed and implemented several biochemistry and fermentation related experiential activities in a food science context, such as "Linking Biochemistry Concepts to Food safety using Yogurt as a Model" and refined the materials for these activities in an iterative way after implementing these activities several times.

      Publications

      • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2021 Citation: Zimmerman T., Goetz, T., Ibrahim, S. Learning Business Economics and Fermentation by Developing a Method for Producing Yogurt for Sale. NACTA, 2021
      • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Zimmerman, T., Ibrahim, M., & Ibrahim, S. A. (2021). Teaching aspects of antibiotics and antimicrobials to the food science student through a combination wet lab and in silico activity. J Microbiol Biol Educ 22: e00157-21. https://doi.org/10.1128/ jmbe.00157-21
      • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2021 Citation: Zimmerman T., Goetz T., Ibrahim, S. (2021) Peanuts, the immune system, and food safety: middle school students assay commercial for products for peanut residues in a remote hands-on activity. ABT (ACCEPTED)