Program Overview
Through a multi-component elementary school-based nutrition education program, FoodLab©, provides New York City elementary school students with hands-on experiences designed to develop the awareness and self-efficacy needed to establish, reinforce, and maintain a healthy diet and lifestyle.

FoodLab’s four main goals are to improve students’ dietary behaviors and patterns, to promote nutrition literacy by developing palate awareness and individual preferences, to reduce dietary vitamin and mineral deficiencies and promote healthful, balanced eating habits that support and strengthen their health, and to prevent childhood obesity and other health risk factors for this population.

The program will achieve these goals by meeting these SMART impact, learning, behavioral, and outcome objectives (McKenzie et al., 2023. p.133-6): During the course of the program’s interventions all students will spend at least 20 minutes of each school day recording their reactions to tasting a seasonal food, preparing a healthy snack, or performing a food science experiment in the classroom. One to two days each week, 95% of the students will prepare and eat a fresh, balanced, nutrient-dense snack. All students will be able to identify and describe at least one new food each week. In the school garden, all students will plant, observe, and predict how these specific crops grow, how and when they are harvested. During the intervention in the classroom and cafeteria, all students will differentiate among the six flavors, distinguishing how food tastes, and identifying their preferences. The skills they develop will positively affect their short and long-term eating habits that will promote lifelong healthful eating patterns that have the lifechanging potential to prevent obesity and chronic diseases while strengthening the body’s immune system.

Dietary behaviors and patterns are complex and influenced by many factors, so the success of FoodLab©, and its ability to affect behavior change in participants is based on the Socioecological Approach. It takes into account influences from family, social networks, and the organizations and communities of which they are a part (McKenzie et al., 2023. p.154). Aligning with the four levels of the Social Ecological Model (Contento, 2016. p.178), on the community-at-large level, FoodLab will partner with local farms in establishing a seasonal
weekly farmer’s market at the school to give teachers, administrators, students and their families a heightened awareness of food sourcing and the seasonal growth process, giving them access to fresh local produce. On the environmental or institutional (school) level, cafeteria lunch menus, classroom tastings, science labs, and garden activities will work in thematic synergy to reinforce concepts in all three spaces. On the interpersonal level, which includes the family and home environment, a bi-monthly newsletter describing program activities and including recipes will be sent to parents. Monthly virtual family cooking classes will bring the foods grown in the school
garden and tasted in the classroom and cafeteria into the home environment. On the intrapersonal level, students will become more knowledgeable about foods, flavors, and their personal needs and preferences.

FoodLab’s synergistic activities were designed based on the Social Cognitive Theory’s (SCT) contention that personal, behavioral, and environmental determinants work dynamically and reciprocally to affect behavior change (Contento, 2016. p. 136). The SCT emphasizes the role of reinforcement in shaping behavior change which is the basis of the multi-component aspect of FoodLab (McKenzie et al., 2023. p. 175). Research shows that multi-component school-based programs focusing on the school food environment tend to be more effective in changing children’s knowledge, health behaviors, and BMI than single component programs (Huang et al., 2013).

Complete and Acceptable Program Delivery
Ideal implementation of FoodLab© will require six essential components: an environmental component involving creating a FoodLab© intervention team and an onsite farmers’ market; four nutrition education curriculum components consisting of a classroom curriculum, a school garden curriculum, a school cafeteria intervention, and a family virtual cooking curriculum; and a teacher training component.

Environmental Component
FoodLab© combines classroom nutrition education with hands-on activities in the school garden, increased availability of nutrient-dense and vitamin-rich foods in the school cafeteria and at home, family cooking classes, and community-based support and participation through relationships with local farmers in an onsite farmers’ market. Each participating school will establish a A FoodLab team with a minimum of 6 members to administer, implement, oversee, and evaluate the program.

The team will have a captain or leader that will be a fully committed member of the school administration and ideally have background and training in health or nutrition education, as well as a FoodLab head teacher (to oversee teacher training and the classroom component), a gardener (to oversee the gardening and farmers’ markets components), a cafeteria staff member (to oversee the cafeteria liaison), a parent, a member of the school’s health staff (may be a school nurse or mental health counselor), and a parent of a student participating in the program.

Nutrition Education (Curriculum) Component
Classroom curriculum: During FoodLab© time, there will be three stations set up in each classroom. Students will be divided into three groups and spend about 20 minutes at each station (the frequency and time allotted to FoodLab© may vary from school to school). Each student will experience each station at least twice weekly for a total of 120 minutes per week. There is a designated teacher at each station. At the TASTE station each student tastes a “flight” of 5 varieties of a seasonal food (like apples or pears), describing the food and noting their preferences on a grade-appropriate Tasting Sheet. Tasting sheets are organized in a section of their FoodLab Book that each student takes home at the end of the school year. At the COOK station, each student prepares a simple, nutritious, seasonal snack like fruit skewers, pita pockets, or nori rolls. The snack is different in each session, and recipes are shared with parents in the bi-monthly newsletter and also filed in each student’s FoodLab Book. At the LAB station students investigate concepts in chemistry, botany, physics, mathematics, or biology by completing a food science experiment and grade-appropriate lab reports as needed that will be included in their
FoodLab Book.

School garden curriculum: With a gardening teacher, students sow, tend (weed, water, and maintain soil), harvest, and taset edible crops that include vegetables, herbs, and fruits. Students examine where food comes from, gain gardening skills, knowledge about botany, and self-efficacy.

School cafeteria curriculum/intervention: School lunch menus are coordinated with classroom and garden curricula so ingredients appear in all three spaces. Seasonal, culturally relevant messages from the classroom and garden curricula are posted in the cafeteria to reinforce learning. Cafeteria staff is trained to converse with students about the menu and the messaging.

Family virtual cooking curriculum: A monthly virtual family cook- along in which a simple nutritious, family-friendly meal is led by a trained cooking teacher incorporating the seasonal ingredients from classroom and garden experiences.

Training Component
All classroom teachers and relevant cafeteria staff will receive one full day of in-service training before the school year begins delivered by the program developers. This will include training in the Social Ecological Model and in Social Cognitive Theory. Participating educators will complete self-evaluations to determine the efficacy of the trainings. Each teacher will participate in monthly virtual (zoom) update sessions in which they receive refresher trainings, they offer feedback on program implementation, and discuss any barriers, benefits, and areas of concern. One-on-one calls with the program developer will be encouraged as needed.