Helping Future Food Scientists STEAM Ahead

In 2013, my husband Ian Blount and I, while running Coalescence, our custom ingredient manufacturing business, founded the George Washington Carver Food Research Institute (GWCFRI) in Columbus, Ohio. We’ve since moved GWCFRI to Charlotte, N.C., but the nonprofit’s purpose remains the same: To expose underrepresented youth to the variety of career pathways available to them in the science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM) disciplines within the food and agriculture space. Our goal is to help young people make more informed choices on ways to fuel their bodies, discover how they can personally play a role in developing products that will enrich lives, and learn how they can use the power of agriculture to improve the economic trajectory for themselves and their families.

We realized that many teenagers growing up in urban environments are disconnected from agriculture. They literally don’t know where their food comes from or how it arrives on retail shelves or at their favorite restaurants—and much less, what careers might be available to them. Urban youth often are unaware of the complexity of our global supply chain and what is involved in raising crops and manufacturing products in safe, sustainable ways while maintaining nutritive value and quality.

In addition, these same urban students are often unaware of the plethora of STEAM career opportunities existing in the food industry. For example, teenagers who excel in academics are frequently guided to pursue careers in law, medicine, or engineering simply because that is what their parents know. Ian and I, like many industry colleagues, found out about food science and agricultural economics purely by accident, stumbling upon these majors by attending career fairs or participating in internships where we learned about the variety of possibilities in our vibrant industry beyond the farm.

Ag Education: Got Swagger?

As agriculture and food industry professionals, it is our responsibility to find solutions that address hunger and malnutrition to meet the needs of people living on this earth now and in the future. This is why we are so interested in exposing Gen Z to agriculture STEAM education. We hope to inspire new generations to pursue careers where they will be able to lend their unique perspectives in solving the food insecurity challenges of 2050 and beyond.

To achieve this, we launched GWCFRI’s inaugural Explore Ag STEAM Camp in 2024, setting out on a quest to give ag “swag” (i.e., swagger) through a fresh approach to food and agriculture education. During the height of summer, we invited 16 urban high school students who knew very little about the food industry to participate in our program. We offered our camp at no cost to the families to remove any potential economic barriers. For 10 days, students spent seven hours doing hands-on, project-based applied learning that was interactive and culturally relevant. Their adventure began with a journey of self-discovery to identify their talents and career interests and an overview of the food industry. During the camp, the students toured an organic farm, a commercial kitchen, postharvest research labs, and a pilot facility.

While a lot of teens were spending their summer vacation participating in leisure activities, our campers were working in micro-business units to develop a new branded item for entrepreneur Claude Booker, who manufactures a line of soul food starters. He challenged them to come up with a cornbread product that had enhanced nutritional benefits and a unique flavor profile or was completely transformed into a more value-added item. The students were engaged and saw how their individual roles and decisions played an integral part in what is involved in commercializing a product from farm to table.

The creativity of these urban Gen Z teens knew no bounds. The products they developed are worthy for placement on store shelves anywhere. When young people are able to see themselves in nontraditional roles and understand the impact they can have on making healthy foods accessible, we believe more will intentionally choose to pursue careers in Ag STEAM. Our plan is to continue to be a good steward of the industry and share what we know with future generations of scientists and business professionals. What will you do to help the next generation STEAM ahead?ft

The opinions expressed in Dialogue are those of the author.