FoodMASTER initiative earns White House award

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) announced that the Food, Math, and Science Teaching Enhancement Resource (FoodMASTER) initiative is one of five winners of the 2024 OSTP Year of Open Science Recognition Challenge. The challenge engages researchers, community scientists, educators, innovators, and the broader public to highlight efforts to expand access to research for the benefit of science and society.

“The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy recognition is meaningful because it confirms that FoodMASTER initiative’s guiding principles are in alignment with national values,” said Melani Duffrin, professor of Health Sciences at NIU and principal investigator of the FoodMASTER initiative. “From the beginning, the initiative research team shared a common value for creating no-cost, open access, evidence-based curricular materials to support teachers and faculty from preschool to higher education.”

FoodMASTER began in 1999 when Duffrin and an elementary school teacher, Sharon Phillips, teamed up to develop open curricular materials for students in rural communities around a topic of special importance and relevance to us all: food. By using a common experience as a teaching tool, the collaborators sought to make mathematics and science education more accessible to a wide range of learners.

Funded by NIH Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA), the collaboration grew into open curricular materials to support active learning methods for an applied approach to microbiology, chemistry, biology, nutrition, mathematics, health, and more designed for grades 3-5, 6-8, high school, and higher education.

FoodMASTER’s efforts tap into the universal power of food to create open educational experiences that can reach diverse communities of students across the country. The approach improves food, mathematics, and science knowledge, stimulates favorable attitudes towards science, and better prepares the general population in understanding scientific research and to consider careers in science.

“We all must maintain good nutrition for survival, stimulating the need for scientific understanding,” Duffrin said. “Food is relevant and can serve as a tool to inspire learners and educators in the understanding of basic and applied science.”

Along with Duffrin, the current core team of FoodMASTER curriculum development researchers includes fellow NIU Professor Henna Muzaffar; David Holben of Mississippi State University; Virginia Stage of North Carolina State University, and Sarah Henes of the University of Georgia. Each member of the team is a Ph.D., Registered Dietitian specializing in school and community food and nutrition educator professional development research. In addition, each member maintains robust partnerships with teachers, outreach organizations, and stakeholders in their communities to create, develop, and research impactful and replicable mathematics and science learning environments.

“The team aims to solve the problem of students developing diminishing attitudes towards academic mathematics and science,” Duffrin said. “Academic confidence and belongingness in mathematics and science begin in the early stages of life and continue throughout the life cycle.”

Learn more about FoodMASTER.

Source: NIU Today CHHS News