All five of our full time interns have officially wrapped up their food and nutrition management rotations in local school districts, including Alhambra Elementary School District, Creighton Elementary School District, Chandler Unified School District, and Scottsdale Unified School District.
Some of the neat projects our interns experienced during their school nutrition rotations this fall included:
Developing standardized recipes and menu planning to meet USDA requirements for the National School Lunch (and breakfast!) Program.
Presenting educational in-services for kitchen managers and other staff members.
Testing a scaled standardized recipe with students and gathering feedback.
Creating parent and student nutrition education materials.
Intern Manda Radulovic was exposed to many unique experiences and projects during her time at Alhambra Elementary School District. From creating and testing a new overnight oats recipe that students were enthusiastic about to presenting about Trauma-Informed Approaches in School Lunchrooms, Manda was busy during this five-week rotation. Other neat experiences Manda had included being involved in an ABC 15 new interview regarding school lunch shortages, teaching nutrition to a fourth-grade class, and helping out with meals to-go at Alhambra Preschool Academy.
From Manda:
"I did a nutrition education for a fourth-grade class and learned a lot from the experience. I learned to be more timely and plan time more accordingly when it comes to education because there were a lot of questions from the kiddos and I wanted to answer all of them, but I realized how much time it was taking away from the lesson I had planned...the kids were so smart and had such wonderful questions. It was amazing to see how much they wanted to learn about nutrition and food. It was an experience I'll never forget."
At Creighton Elementary School District, intern Dyanna Potter had a busy rotation. Among the many projects completed during the five-week rotation, she created an in-service presentation on social emotional education in the cafeteria focused on a culture of caring. Additionally, she created nutrition education materials to highlight unique fruits and vegetables as part of the Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Program (FFVP).
From Dyanna:
"I'm starting to see how to make all of this work. At the beginning, I felt really overwhelmed with what it took to make school meals possible. But a tiny bit of the curtain has been pulled back."
During intern Oryana Hannoona's time at Scottsdale Unified School District, she learned a great deal about different management styles and how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected school nutrition. One of her key projects included an in-service presentation on encouraging students to choose more fruits and vegetables with a vision for students to take fruits and veggies to complete their meals, eat in a welcoming environment, and waste less food.
From Oryana:
"I feel more confident with my understanding of how school food service is managed. I got to share my thoughts and ideas with my preceptors about making serving meals during the pandemic more efficient and following reimbursable meal guidelines more effectively."
At Chandler Unified School District, intern Dajana Moore delivered several presentations, including an in-service for CUSD staff about reimbursable meals and offer versus serve. Additionally, she presented on a journal article about an
intervention that was used to increase fruit and vegetable consumption and participation with food preparation among children and completed a nutrition lesson for K-8th graders.
Regarding an elementary school event celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month that she helped the food and nutrition team with, Dajana remarked:
"I liked being part of the Hispanic Heritage event. I was able to see how they prepared everything from scratch and I had fun interacting with the kids. Working with kids in a low income area interests me, so being able to interact with them was something I can see myself doing in my future as a dietitian."
At Scottsdale Unified School District, intern Ashleigh Comber spent five weeks working on numerous projects including a journal abstract about fruit and vegetable consumption in primary schools, creating and analyzing recipes for cinnamon apples and sloppy joes, and presenting on the history of the school lunch program. Additionally, Ashleigh created an excellent infographic to compliment her journal abstract.
Ashleigh and the other full time interns also had the opportunity to visit other school districts together to see the differences between districts and food and nutrition management teams.
From Ashleigh:
"A big positive was seeing the other interns at the site visits! Also jut seeing the differences between the school districts - I didn't think each one would be so different and it is helpful to have a full picture of what a career in school nutrition could look like."
Thank you so much to the wonderful preceptors and staff in our local school districts for teaching our interns all there is to know about school nutrition! We appreciate you!
