How can we promote sustainable STEM engagement that reaches a large US audience? First, we can leverage resources and knowledge that are already available. The Food for Thought (FFT) project promotes STEM engagement through cooking, an activity that occurs daily in family homes. Second, families help ignite and sustain children's interest in science pathways, but they may not always have access to effective, high-quality materials that connect science with their daily lives. This project developed high-quality materials for families with children ages 7-13 that link cooking and science, including: (a) Food Labs, food-based investigations in schools or museums, (b) Light Interventions that allow families to engage in Food Labs at home, and (c) Innovative measurements, including embedded STEM learning assessments with minimal disruption during engagement. FFT project results have advanced our knowledge about materials, supports, and activities that foster family science learning and ignite children's STEM interest.

Intellectual Merit

Project results contribute to multiple fields of study, including Learning and Developmental Science and Informal Education. We tested our cooking-centered STEM interventions in multiple settings, including classrooms, family homes, and museums. For example, our Light Interventions promoted STEM engagement in family homes to measure the impact of minimal interventions. In one study, we increased family STEM talk (e.g., explanations, science vocabulary) by infusing wh-questions into a recipe to promote conversations during cooking. This method demonstrates that carefully targeted engagement supports – even minimal ones - can positively impact STEM engagement. Separately, we used cooking as a context to teach 3^rd-5^th graders about setting up good experiments. During an activity that taught students to make stovetop popcorn, participants first saw a brief demonstration about designing good experiments (varying only one thing at a time). We then asked them to evaluate possible setups, some correct and some incorrect. Students who saw these demonstrations showed much greater improvement in their post-test performance compared to students without the intervention. The food science – here, making popcorn – served as the hook and context for the learning. This project also created novel ways to measure STEM learning. A Lunch in Space museum stage show blended NASA assets with audience engagement, putting participants in the role of NASA food scientists to create a menu for the International Space Station that prioritized qualities such as no crumbs or compact-ability. After several stage demonstrations, the facilitator collected audience menus, which functioned as an embedded assessment used by the research team to measure guests’ understanding of space food science.

Broader Impacts

The FFT project created multiple, durable Broader Impacts. One product is a publicly-available science cookbook that includes empirically-evaluated supports for STEM learning and engagement.  The team developed recipes with partner La Soupe (Cincinnati, OH), who ensured that recipes utilized shelf-stable ingredients and minimal equipment to make recipes accessible to food-insecure audiences. The project also created Food Science summer camps for upper elementary-aged children. Kent State and Cincinnati Museum Center (CMC) developed a summer camp to teach children about cooking and science. We expanded camp curriculum to serve multiple locations in Hawai’i (Maui, Hawai’i, & Moloka’i) with partner Center for Getting Things Started. In all locations, summer camps proved extremely popular with both children and families, and are now a self-sustaining staple of programming at each partner location. Finally the project created a series of flexible, ingredient-based food science modules, such as the science of eggs or emulsions, that can be plugged into a variety of recipes at all partner locations.

Although we did not design the initial project for teaching experiences, it did create direct impacts for teachers through professional development for chefs in Ohio, California, and Hawai’i.  For example, Hawaiian teachers worked with native Hawaiian plants, learning to incorporate them into school gardens. The team also partnered with the Hawaiʻi ʻUlu Co-op to supply each teacher with a classroom set of ʻuala for them to start school in a tasty, healthy manner. 

FFT has led to sustainable impacts in a variety of ways. The project helped spark major investment from Kroger, a Cincinnati-based grocery-store retailer, that allowed CMC to design and build Cr(eat)e Culinary Studio featuring the Kroger FoodLab. This teaching kitchen builds on the engagement methods, recipes, skills, and techniques that the team researched and piloted for the FFT project. Through camps, workshops, classes, and events, this space offers sustainable STEM education and engagement activities for the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana region.

In sum, the FFT project generated significant intellectual contributions and broader impacts that continue to inspire children, families, teachers, and community organizations to engage in STEM learning while acquiring an important life skill: cooking. FFT findings help us understand how to leverage a familiar activity that occurs in everyday life to create a scalable, sustainable means to promote STEM learning in our society.

Last Modified: 02/24/2025
Modified by: Bradley J Morris