Medical Journal mentions UW-Green Bay role in school gardening project

An elementary school gardening project that reinforced the importance of healthy eating increased students’ consumption of vegetables from the school lunch program’s salad bar, according to a new study published this month in the Wisconsin Medical Journal. The children got more excited about salads when the school started growing its own. The program at Elmore Elementary School was a collaboration of Brown County UW-Extension, the local school district, and the UW-Green Bay Dietetics Program. A news release overview is online.

Project was student internship for UW-Green Bay alumna
The gardening-and-healthy-eating project at Elmore School involved the participation of several Nutritional Sciences and dietetics students at UW-Green Bay. Among the most involved was Jenna Olcott, who made the research a focus of her undergraduate internship in fall 2008. Olcott received her bachelor’s in May ’09 and went on to a professional appointment with the Green Bay School District’s food service program. Faculty members Karen Lacey and Debra Pearson recall that others participated including students from the Community Nutrition course who assisted with classroom lectures on food safety and healthy nutrition at Elmore. Also noteworthy, registered dietician Laura Rowell, a co-author of the Wisconsin Medical Journal report, has been an adjunct instructor in the UW-Green Bay program, most recently last fall. Click here to access the full Journal article.