Food and Drug Administration
U. S. Department of Agriculture
May 11, 1998

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Introduction

There is consensus in the public health community that learning safe food-handling habits at an early age benefits health in the short and long term -- and yet many children and teens have not received adequate education on the topic of food safety. Ensuring that all students receive such education is critical. Because understanding and practicing proper food safety techniques can significantly reduce food-borne illness, school-age children have been identified as a high-priority group to receive food-safety education under the President's Food Safety Initiative.

Over the years, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA/FDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), have produced a variety of school-oriented programs and materials aimed at various grade levels. USDA/FDA are now about to embark on a large-scale effort to provide young people with food safety information in a school environment. In preparation for this initiative, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of that environment today and in the near future. These questions are critical:

• Where can food safety best be integrated from both grade level and subject matter perspectives?

• What can we hope to accomplish--raise awareness, increase knowledge, change attitudes, develop skills, and/or alter behavior?

• Who will be the primary instructors for food safety instruction--classroom teachers, cafeteria staff, school nurses, or some other group?

• What media and formats will receive greatest acceptance among K-12 educators?

USDA/FDA secured the services of Macro International Inc. (Macro) to conduct research and develop a report that would guide planning of future K-12 food safety education initiatives. The following document describes the project’s activities and methodology, presents Macro’s findings, and offers recommendations on positioning and delivering food safety education in public schools.

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Project Activities

Six major activities were conducted in completing this project. These activities included

• Planning Meeting--Macro staff met with representatives of USDA/FDA to finalize the overall purpose and goals of the research initiative.

• Food Safety Instructional Materials Review--Macro investigated existing curricula, projects, and standards and materials, extension materials, and other educational products related to food safety.

• Review of Relevant Reports--Macro reviewed dozens of relevant reports on technology, food safety, school health services, school food services, and other information germane to this study.

• Curriculum and Instructional Materials Review--This review included an analysis of the curriculum standards for science, health education, and home economics, as well as major textbooks for these subject areas. Macro reviewed additional high-quality classroom materials (e.g., workbooks, games, computer applications, and Web sites) to identify products on related topics that were well designed and effective.

• Interviews with Educators and Experts--Macro staff conducted 24 in-depth interviews with master teachers (of science, health, or home economics at various grade levels), other school staff (such as nurses and food service professionals), and experts on curriculum development and other related topics.

• Interim and Final Reports--This report is the final task in this initiative. In it the reader will find a report and analysis of information gathered via the tasks above.

Methodology

Traditional qualitative research techniques were employed to conduct literature reviews, and one-on-one telephone interviews, and to conduct final data analysis. Semistructured interviews were used to allow for the use of predetermined open-ended questions. Documents were suggested and provided by USDA/FDA for review. Additional materials that were suggested by interview participants, which were identified during other research tasks or serendipitously identified, were located at local libraries and reviewed in situ. Macro developed three semistructured telephone interview protocols for interviews with classroom teachers, content experts, and other school staff. Interviews were all conducted via telephone and lasted approximately 30 minutes each. Teachers and other school-based staff were recruited via a convenience snowball sample. In addition to the teacher and school-based staff interviews, Macro staff conducted interviews with education leaders and curriculum developers. These telephone interviews differed from the interviews with teachers and other school staff in that probes for specific information within each individual expert’s domain of expertise were designed.

FINDINGS

Document Reviews

Reviewing relevant documents allowed an exploration of the multiple aspects and considerations of where to place a food safety message and how to best deliver that message to students. Three primary areas of concentration in the Nation’s current education system intuitively relate to food safety messages: science classes, health classes, and family/consumer sciences (home economics) classes. Food safety messages could also be presented and promoted by school health services personnel and food services personnel. There are numerous studies of a wide variety of specific applications for technology in educational settings that show improvements in student performance, student motivation, teacher satisfaction, and other important educational outcomes. Applying existing technology to the delivery of educational messages makes this an exciting time to develop curricula and educational materials. Televisions, computers and the Internet are all excellent ways to reach students with new educational messages. Other uses of technology such as videoteleconferencing and electronic chat capabilities are currently underutilized technologies.

Curriculum Materials Review

Middle school and junior high school have more directly related curricula standards for food safety items than does high school. Science, health, and consumer science curricula all offer advantages and disadvantages for the inclusion of food safety elements. Examining science curricula indicated that there are few obvious guidelines for linking food safety education, although strong arguments to include food safety messages in science classes can be made. The focus of health education programs over the past decade has been on the reduction of a somewhat narrowly defined set of "risk behaviors"--tobacco use, use of alcohol and other drugs, dietary patterns, sedentary lifestyle, sexual behaviors that result in HIV infection/other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and unintended pregnancy; and behaviors that result in intentional (e.g., suicide) and unintentional (e.g., auto accidents) injury. These standards do not contain any topic closely related to food-borne illnesses at the present. The standards for family and consumer sciences now under development are nutrition, food safety, and wellness, so that students can "evaluate nutritional, food safety, and wellness practices to promote individual and family well-being across the life span." Under this overall standard, there are content standards to evaluate the factors affecting food safety from many perspectives

Food Safety Education Materials

A significant number of supplementary curriculum materials have been developed to support instruction on food safety. Some of these are intended for public school students of various ages. Others are considered by their developers to be easily adaptable for use in K-12 classrooms. Macro reviewed 51 products and spoke with eight individuals who had been involved in the development of food safety education materials to ascertain the overall quality and usability of the materials in public education

Interviews

Interviews with teachers, school health service, and school food service personnel revealed that awareness of food safety issues is high among the individuals interviewed for this study, with the media being the main source of information on the subject. Interviewees all agreed that food safety is an important topic for students to study, but they also confess that little is covered in existing curricula so it is not a priority issue at the present moment.

Much of what is currently being taught about food safety in the schools is covered in family and consumer science courses, with middle school students focused mainly on life skills, and the higher grades concentrating more on vocational training. While educators feel that there is a lack of high-quality educational materials relating to food safety, the materials that do exist come in a variety of formats. Interviewees listed the following as media types that they currently make use of in teaching students about food safety: videos, movies, standard science text books, newspapers, television news reports, the Internet, Governmental materials and campaigns (e.g., Fight BAC!(TM), and The Danger Zone), magazines (e.g., Science World), "current events," posters, radio news broadcasts.

Interview participants discussed the need for activities to be hands on in order to maintain interest in the topic and to engage the students in the lesson. Informants mentioned a wide variety of activities that students really enjoyed. Most agreed that students liked to participate in hands-on activities and that they wanted to be challenged in a variety of ways. All of the interviewees stated that computers were available in their schools, and all were interested in how they could make better use of the technology to deliver food safety and other educational messages.

Most of the interviewees agreed that students were interested in their own health and that for the most part students today were interested in taking steps to take care of themselves. This, they agreed, meant that food safety was likely to be well received by students. Nearly everyone interviewed agreed that middle school grades were the most appropriate place for the food safety messages. While many interviewees agreed that food safety messages could be tailored to any age, grades six through eight were nearly unanimous suggestions as "giving the best bang for the buck." Most of the teachers and organizational representatives interviewed thought that food service and health services staff could have a limited role in delivering a food safety message to students. The school health services and food services staff who participated in the interviews agreed that they could play an important role, albeit backseat to teachers, in delivering the food safety message.

CONCLUSIONS and RECOMMENDATIONS

The following are conclusions and recommendations that have been reached through the research:

• School officials (e.g., teachers, school health professionals, school food service personnel, and administrators) recognize the need to work new educational initiatives into existing curricula rather than to attempt to introduce new curricula.

• Food safety issues are perfect for thematic units of study in many educational areas including math, science, home economics or family and consumer sciences, health, and other areas within existing school curricula.

• Family/consumer science classes provide an ideal setting for food safety education. The hands-on aspects of the cooking classroom make it ideal for developing food safety habits as well as increasing knowledge about the topic. Not all students, however, are required to take these classes.

• In terms of reaching the most students, science seems to offer the most promise. The analysis of the science curriculum standards indicates where food safety instruction could best fit. However, simple food safety messages are not likely to appeal to or be adopted by science teachers without modifications to make them more "scientific."

• The middle grades (5 though 8) appear to offer the best opportunities to integrate food safety education into the curriculum for several reasons. Upper elementary school and high school also offer some opportunities, although these should be considered secondary review or enhancement opportunities.

• Refocusing the placement of food safety issues in Healthy People 2010 to health promotion rather than keeping it in its current position of health protection will make the message more prominent to teachers.

• Work with textbook publishers to ensure that there is adequate and appropriate coverage of food safety topics.

• There is a need to do a thorough, comprehensive review of existing food safety materials and to compile and cross-index a listing of the materials that are considered to be of high quality as a resource guide. This guide should be widely distributed once available.

• There are a limited number of print materials that appear to be of high quality from a content perspective. Those that exist could benefit from an updating to a more attractive format. Such a step should encourage the use of these products.

• Promote the importance of food safety education at various organizational levels--National initiatives that have a trickle-down influence on education (e.g., National Food Safety Initiatives, Healthy People 2000, Goals 2000); groups involved in curriculum standards development for relevant subject areas; regional and State mandates and curriculum frameworks; school district curriculum supervisors; and individual classroom teachers.

• There are few materials that take into account populations with special educational needs. These include populations with limited English proficiency and low literacy skills as well as those who have cognitive or other disabilities. Accommodations should be made to make these materials accessible to all students

• Print, video, and audio materials have a relatively long shelf life--as long as they are sound from a content and design perspective. The same cannot be said for computer applications. Therefore, there is a need to invest carefully in such materials. At the current time, schools seem to be moving strongly to use of the Internet as an informational and instructional resource although it seems likely that CD-ROM will remain important in schools for several years, and a successor (e.g., DVD) will take over once that has been relegated to antiquity.

• Teachers recognize the importance of introducing units of study to students in exciting and innovative ways. Making use of advance technologies such as computer applications, online services, video capabilities, satellite transmissions, and others is one way of capturing student attention and creating excitement around educational messages.

• Special events, such as television programming, video teleconferences, online discussions or "chats" with experts, and other singular and timely "events" can facilitate the presentation of educational messages that are actually eagerly anticipated by students and teachers alike. Given that much of the food safety message can be taught in relatively short timeframes, special event presentation is one excellent way to ensure interest in such an initiative.