Enhancing Food Safety Education by Incorporating Simulation-Based Learning

<p>1. Increase the number and diversity of students who will pursue and complete a postsecondary degree in the food and agricultural sciences in the NIFA priority area of food safety. 2. Enhance the quality of postsecondary instruction in order to help the current and future national food and agricultural sciences workplace need in the area of food safety. Within the program goals, it will primarily address the Educational Need Areas of Instructional Delivery Systems and Expanding Student Career Opportunities. Specific objectives of this project: 1) Distill critical food safety concepts (see 4) in relation to formal undergraduate and graduate education and determine how simulation technology can enhance the understanding of these concepts; 2) Develop simulation-based learning modules that integrate interdisciplinary knowledge in a seamless manner for use in formal classrooms to: a) enhance the critical food safety concepts identified in 1) and b) allow the learner to apply these concepts in more complex situations than in traditional learning; 3) Build on the available software and develop additional computational capabilities and appropriate interfaces that enable the use of simulation with the target audiences, and validate for a range of product, process, microbiology and risk scenarios using data from the literature; 4) Develop tutorials, video-based training materials (using the visualization capabilities of simulation) and other “instructor-proof” supporting materials to enable the routine use of simulation to enhance food safety education in formal classrooms; 5) Implement and assess the modules in food science and food engineering courses at several universities; 6) Disseminate the training material, procedures, results, software, and recommendations developed from the project through national workshops and a Website.</p>