Program Activities

The Summer Experience program activities were hands-on and experiential in nature, and a specific curriculum was not used. The program activities included cooking, gardening,

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project was to engage students in developing a business that involved harvesting, processing, bottling and marketing hot sauce.

Gardening activities included growing, as well as gleaning vegetables from local farmer’s fields. Students were responsible for planting, watering, weeding, and harvesting vegetables. Crops planted included potatoes, bell peppers, cayenne and jalapeno peppers, snap beans, peas, okra, sweet corn, squash, cucumbers, watermelon, cantaloupe, and cucumbers.

The produce that was grown or gleaned was sold at the OSBR farm stand and used in weekly cooking sessions. The weekly farm stand located in a church parking lot in OSBR, was held under a portable tent and run by the students. Students were in charge of the farm-stand set-up, display, marketing, and handling cash. The farm-stand was a part of the business skills and development training portion of the program. Beginning in 2006, cayenne and jalapeno peppers were grown on LSU AgCenter property to create a signature, value-added hot sauce product. Peppers were harvested and immediately ground with salt, stored into 5 gallon buckets, and left to ferment for 1 year. The Old South Baton Rouge Hot Sauce was developed as a means to bring income and sustainability to the program.

The LSU School of Human Ecology taught the cooking and nutrition education component of the Summer Experience program, with assistance from LSU service-learning students from a spring course in human nutrition. The curriculum covered lessons in food preparation, portion control, healthy choices, nutrition content, and low-fat, economical recipes. The cooking lab had a complete kitchen with twelve stove-top and sink units, which students use once a week when divided into groups. Each week a new meal was cooked, and each group was assigned a dish to produce within the 4 hour time frame. Students shared a community-style meal with the dishes prepared that day.

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The Summer Experience program was comprised of activities that meet the content requirements by the Louisiana State Department of Education under the Louisiana Agriscience, Agribusiness, FFA Framework that aims to train and educate youth for careers and leadership roles in the food, fiber and natural resource systems of Louisiana. The Summer Experience program met benchmarks of in the content strands of agricultural literacy, personal development, agribusiness, plant systems, environmental management, and agricultural processing. (Louisiana, 1999).

3.4. Program Delivery

The eight-week program met three days a week, Tuesday through Thursday from 7am – 12:00 pm. Students participated in the program for approximately fifteen hours a week. Those fifteen hours were divided into five contact hours of cooking and nutrition, five contact hours of horticulture and agriculture training, and five hours of marketing, business, and leadership training.

Program coordinators in 2007 and 2008 consisted of an LSU A&M Horticulture graduate student as program director, an LSU A&M Instructor of human nutrition and food, an LSU A&M Instructor of horticulture, a community affairs liaison for LSU CUP, and Director of Advocates for Change Nonprofit, as well as undergraduate student volunteers. Undergraduate students involved interns, receiving stipends and school credit.

3.5. Instrumentation

The Fruit and Vegetable Questionnaire (Domel et al., 1993)(Appendix B) is divided into three parts measuring nutrition knowledge, fruit and vegetable attitudes, and snack preferences. The Nutrition knowledge section consisted of thirteen multiple-choice questions on topics covered in the Summer Experience cooking lab. The questions cover items such as serving sizes, food groups, nutrition, and health information. Each correct answer was given one point

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and each incorrect answer zero points. Possible scores ranged from zero to thirteen points with higher scores indicating a greater knowledge of nutrition information.

The Fruit and Vegetable attitude section consisted of a list of ten fruit and vegetable items which students marked the box which best described their feelings towards each item. Students had three choices from which to describe their feelings towards each item; “ I like this a lot” two points, “ I like this a little” one point, or “ I do not like this” zero points. The answers were scored and results ranged between zero and twenty points. Higher scores signify increased attitudes towards fruit and vegetables.

The snack preference section consisted of ten questions giving students a choice between a fruit or vegetable item and a non-fruit or vegetable, or “unhealthy” snack item. One point was given for each fruit or vegetable snack chosen and zero points were given for choosing an

unhealthy snack, for a score range of zero to ten points. High scores indicate a greater preference for healthy snack choices.

3.6. Data Analysis

Testing for the study consisted of a pre-test at the beginning of the 8-week program in June, and a post-test on the second to last day of the program in July of both years. The data collected from the pre-test and post-test scores of the 2007 and 2008 programs were pooled over both years and the test results were subjected to a one-tailed, paired t-test. The sample size for each section of the test, in both 2007 and 2008 varied due to student absence on the pre-test or post-test date and blank answers. Students who left answers blank were omitted from the overall results. Thought was given to keeping the students answers and replacing the blank answer with a zero, however, this would have not impacted the final data and made it more significant.

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3.7. Results

3.7.1. Nutrition Knowledge

Each segment of the Fruit and Vegetable Questionnaire (Domel et al., 1993) was analyzed separately. The nutrition knowledge section (p ≤ 0.187, n= 35) was not statistically different. (Table 3.2.) The most frequently missed questions pertained to serving size or recommended portions of fruits and vegetables.

3.7.2. Fruit and Vegetable Attitude

The fruit and vegetable attitude section was not significant (p ≤ 0.283, n=33). (Table 3.2.)

3.7.3. Snack Preference

The snack preference section was significant in (p ≤ 0.025, n=31) (Table 3.2.). The 2007 data reveals that fourteen out of eighteen students increased their preference for a healthy fruit or vegetable snack rather than a non-fruit or vegetable snack. Only one student out of eighteen had no change in preference, and three students had a lower preference for fruits or vegetables by one point. Orange juice was the most preferred item in the fruit category, followed by apples and tangerines. Grapefruit was the least-preferred fruit item on the list. Post-test scores reveal a high preference for lettuce, green beans, broccoli and carrots, and the least preferred vegetables were squash and tomatoes.