Program Strategies
The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.
– William Butler Yeats
FoodLab is a school-based program designed to strengthen food literacy among students and their families. Food literacy is defined as the interchange of knowledge, skills, and behaviors required to select, prepare, and taste food to determine and meet nourishment needs and it is key to improving children's diet, educational attainment, and prevention of chronic diseases in adulthood (Kelly & Nash, 2021).
Given the prevalence of overweight and obesity along with undernutrition among elementary school children, childhood food literacy development is essential. Food literacy is key to improving children's diet, educational attainment, and prevention of chronic diseases in adulthood (Kelly & Nash, 2021).
FoodLab is based on the social-ecological model and is designed to include at-home and in-community components that reinforce in-school experiential learning. The Whole School, Whole Child, Whole Community (WSCC) model, built on other socioecological theories, emphasizes the school as an integral part of the community at large (Lewallen et al., 2015. p. 730). FoodLab experiences are reinforced among the various program components to support successful implementation and positive long-term outcomes.
Nutrition Education Component
Nutrition education takes place in the school garden, the classroom, in the cafeteria, online, at home for family cook-alongs, and alongside the community-at-large.
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In the school garden
Twice each week (in season), students sow, water, weed, mulch, harvest, and taste crops in the school garden, with a gardening teacher. They explore where food comes from, gain gardening skills, knowledge about botany, and self-efficacy. They learn to identify and categorize edible crop types including root, round, leafy, and flower, and they distinguish between botanical families like allium, cucurbit, and brassica. The vegetables harvested from the school garden are used for tastings in the garden and in the classroom, with surplus sold in the farmer’s market, sent home with students, or donated to local food pantries. Finally, time spent in the garden is active, which is key to overall good health.
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In the classroom
Each week each child experiences about 120 minutes of FoodLab time, during which they spend 20-minute segments at three different stations, each led by a designated teacher: TASTE, COOK, and LAB. At TASTE each student samples a flight of 4-5 varieties of a seasonal food (like apples or pears), describing characteristics like texture and flavor, noting their preferences on age-appropriate tasting sheets. At COOK, each student prepares a nutritious, seasonal snack (like celery boats, fruit skewers, or nori rolls). Recipes are shared with parents in the bi-monthly newsletter. At LAB students investigate age-appropriate concepts in biology, botany, chemistry, mathematics or physics by completing a food science experiment and recording results on lab sheets. Tasting and lab sheets are collated into a personalized FoodLab Book that each student works on and takes home at the end of the year.
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In the cafeteria
The goal is for there to be synergy in and coordination among all nutrition education activities, so the cafeteria serves dishes using ingredients grown in the school garden and discussed in the classroom. 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. Some sample messaging topics will be: eating a variety of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, the importance of eating seasonal foods, the MyPlate dietary guidelines, the Macronutrients (carbohydrates, fats, and proteins), vitamins and Minerals (the Micronutrients), balancing food intake and physical activity, drinking water and hydration, and eating breakfast.
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Environmental Change Component
Children spend more time in school than anywhere other than their home so the school environment presents opportunities for modeling best safety and sustainable health practices, serving healthy food, providing key messaging, and establishing positive, health-supportive, health-strengthening behaviors (Lewallen et al., 2015). Children eat at least one meal a day in school, and sometimes as many as three, with snacks. They learn and participate in various kinds of physical activities in school including incorporating movement into classroom learning and daily recess (Lewallen et al., 2014). These are all key components in overall health. FoodLab provides a framework within which each school creates a healthy food environment and positive associations with food through implementation and participation in all food and nutrition-related programs, including family interventions like regular newsletters and virtual family cook-alongs led by a trained cooking teacher incorporating the seasonal ingredients from the classroom and school garden experiences.
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Training Component
All classroom teachers and relevant cafeteria staff receive a full day of in-service training before the school year begins delivered by the program developers. Cafeteria staff is trained to converse with students about the menu and the messaging. All teachers receive 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 participates 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.
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