Today kicks off a new guest blogger addition to the MG Book Village blog, The STEM Tuesday Spin-Off. On a bi-monthly basis, members of the STEM Tuesday group at From the Mixed-Up Files…of Middle Grade Authors will share a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) post that ties middle grade STEM books, resources, and the STEM Tuesday weekly posts to the familiar, everyday things in the life of middle graders.
We’ll look at the things in life we often take for granted. We’ll peek behind the curtain and search underneath the hood for the STEM principles involved and suggest books and/or links to help build an understanding of the world around us. The common, everyday thing will be the hub of the post and the “spin-offs” will be the spokes making up our wheel of discovery. As my STEM Tuesday Craft & Resources cohort, Heather L. Montgomery often says, we’ll “Go deep!” on a common subject and take a look at its inherent STEM components.
For the inaugural post, we will take a closer look at something near and dear (and sometimes feared) by the average 8-14-year-old.
School Lunch!
The Hub: School lunch
Spoke 1: Nutrition & Menu Design
Contrary to popular belief, school lunch just doesn’t happen by accident nor is it a random offering of what foodstuffs are on hand. Believe it or not, even that turkey tetrazzini or the mystery meatloaf is part of school lunch by design. Over the past several decades, the spotlight on the importance of school lunch has garnered a bounty of attention. Heath, brain development, wellness, and food insecurity are now vital components of the one place in a school that is often taken for granted—the school cafeteria.
Performance nutrition
- Who better to listen to on the performance nutrition front than our armed forces where properly fueling their people can be a matter of life and death?
- United States Marines “Performance Nutrition”
- United States Navy “NOFFS Fueling Series“
- Book: Food and Nutrition: Eating to Win by
- USDA school lunch recommendations and guidelines
- “Rethinking School Lunch” Downloadable PDF file
Spoke 2: Cafeteria Design & Engineering
The days of bland, boring, and institutional cafeterias and lunchrooms may be behind us. The cafeteria as a place to relax, unwind, refuel, and socialize is happening. And it’s pretty darn awesome. So awesome, I may have to re-enroll in elementary school to make up for all the brown bag bologna sandwiches I endured back in the day.
- 13 Beautiful School Cafeterias from School Leaders Now
- IDEO Program in San Francisco
- Book: Lillian Gilbreth: Redefining Domesticity (Lives of American Women) 1st Edition by Julie Des Jardins
- Book: Design It!: The Ordinary Things We Use Every Day and the Not-So-Ordinary Ways They Came to Be by Rona Arato
Spoke 3: Food Preparation Science/Food Disposal Science
Making good food is fun. Making good food for hundreds and perhaps even thousands of school kids safely is a challenge day after day after day. After all the food is prepared, served, and consumed, then something has to be done with all the waste, right?
Culinary Arts
- Book: RELISH by Lucy Knisley
Food Safety
I’m a microbiologist. I could probably bore you to tears with talk of Salmonella, Listeria, E. coli O157:H7, Aeromonas hydrophila, and other food pathogens. Wait! You’re already crying tears of joy reading this post? (I guess I should shelf the microbial talk and get back to business before I get booted from the MG Book Village.) Food safety is important. Food touches so many people in so many positive ways but it can also affect people negatively by causing illness. Take the case of cook Mary Mallon and the spread of Salmonella typhi in 1907 as an example of the importance of safely serving food.
- Books: FATAL FEVER: Tracking Down Typhoid Mary by Gail Jarrow
- Book: TERRIBLE TYPHOID MARY: A True Story of the Deadliest Cook in America By Susan Campbell Bartoletti
- USDA Food Safety site
- Center for Food Safety in Child Nutrition Programs
Food Disposal/Recycling
- Book: THIS BOOK STINKS: Gross Garbage, Rotten Rubbish, and the Science of Trash by Sarah Wassner Flynn
- Book: PLASTICS AHOY!: Investigating the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by Patricia Newman
Spoke 4: Food Production
Where does all that food come from? So much in the life of everyone depends on safe, nutritious, and tasty food finding its way onto the tables in homes and in school cafeterias everywhere.
- Book: Word of Mouth: The Food You Eat by Nancy Rogers Bontempo
- Book: One Small Farm: Photographs of a Wisconsin Way of Life by Craig Schreiner
Production Resources
- United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service: Food and beverage manufacturing
- I could watch this Most Amazing Food Processing Machines video over and over.
Spoke 5: Seed Science and Genetics
The science of food has been with us as long as we’ve been hanging around on this planet. Producing better crops, livestock, fruits, and vegetables have led to some of the greatest scientific advances of humanity. Production improvements and protection are vital to our future food security. Farmers and researcher are now using high-tech methodologies, satellite imaging, advanced weather and soil sensors, genetic data, performance data to predict and refine agriculture.
Seed Science Resources
- Svalbard Global Seed Vault link
- Book: SEEDS by Nancy Castaldo
- Looking ahead to ensure food security.
- Wheat Innovation Center at KSU
- Wheat Science Database
Spoke 6: Hunger & Taste
At the end of the day, when you talk about school lunch, you got to talk taste. Hungry kids love the food but truthfully, how many sixth graders have you seen be excited about a sticky scoop of overcooked white rice plopped into their bowl? Food that tastes good = happy kids. Happy, healthy kids = a better world.
- Why do we get hungry?
- Book: Explore the senses in the graphic novel, HUMAN BODY THEATER by Maris Wicks
- Beyond Taste Buds: The Science of Delicious article from National Geographic Magazine
Can we talk about food and leave out dessert? NO WAY!
- Author Interview: CHOCOLATE: Sweet Science & Dark Secrets of the World’s Favorite Treat by Kay Frydenborg
After researching this post on school lunch, my TBR pile has ballooned to a record high level. Some of this information I’ve read, some I am looking forward to reading ASAP. Dear trusty, MG Book Village reader, can you add additional books, comments on the listed books, and/or resources to any of the STEM Tuesday Spin-Off School Lunch spokes? If so, please do! We need all the details we can get our inquisitive hands on.
Wrap-Up
The true power of STEM doesn’t reside in the formulas, pathways, measurements, lines of code, or the blueprints we often associated with science, technology, mathematics, and technology. STEM lives and breaths in observation with an eye toward understanding and innovation. STEM is a way of looking at the world around us.
As we can see by taking a closer look at something ordinary like school lunch, STEM is all around us every day! There are multiple STEM stories around virtually every, single thing we interact with during the course of our day. There are also STEM books and resources to help explain most of these STEM stories we encounter.
Be curious. Think about the world around you. Figure out what makes it tick and work to make it better.
I want to read that story!
All this talk of school lunch has made me hungry. Now, where did I put that bologna sandwich?
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT! STEM Tuesday is hosting a CoSTEM Contest to celebrate one whole year of STEM Tuesday blogs. The CoSTEM Contest is a mash-up of literacy and STEM costumes. So drag out your favorite books, take a good look at the theme, then create an amazing, one-of-a-kind, spectacular costume. Most important, there will be book prizes! Yes, book prizes! Check out the details HERE.
Mike Hays has worked hard from a young age to be a well-rounded individual. A well-rounded, equal opportunity sports enthusiasts, that is. If they keep a score, he’ll either watch it, play it, or coach it. A molecular microbiologist by day, middle-grade author, sports coach, and general good citizen by night, he blogs about sports/training related topics at www.coachhays.com and writer stuff at www.mikehaysbooks.com. Two of his essays will be included in the Putting the Science in Fiction collection from Writer’s Digest Books release later this month. He can be found roaming around the Twitter-sphere under the guise of @coachhays64.
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