Healthy children and common “senses”
Thursday, June 7th, 2007
The idea: get 6th graders to use their five senses to develop better food habits.
The goal: lower the prevalence of obesity in children.
The plan won a team of five College of Human Ecology students first place in the nation-wide 3rd annual Elaine Skinner Memorial Sensory Design Competition recently. Students are Alisa Doan, Aussama Soontrunnarudrungsri, Kelly Thompson, Gaewalin Oupadissakoon and Jeehyun Lee. All are in K-State’s sensory analysis graduate program.
This marks the third Skinner win for the College of Human Ecology. The winning project was titled “Sensory Knowledge: A Basis for Healthy Living.” The team developed 12 lesson plans to teach the relationship between sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch and eating choices.
In one lesson, students would conduct sensory evaluation on fried vs. baked potato chips, low sodium vs. regular crackers and sugar-free vs. regular gelatin. In others, they would link physical activity and food to obesity.
The judges found the entry comprehensive and well integrated, reported Edgar Chambers IV, director of the Sensory Analysis Center. They congratulated the team on its creativity and on using “legitimate science to get at concrete answers.”
This entry was posted on Thursday, June 7th, 2007 and is filed under Dean's Blog.