Penn State students hoping to learn more about the chemistry of food will have the opportunity to get a hands-on learning experience in Taipei, Taiwan, during an embedded course next spring.

The course will take place as a trip to Taiwan from May 14 to June 3 and is available to students at all Penn State campuses.

Students will spend their time in Taiwan learning food-related chemistry through observing, tasting, discussing and preparing various local cuisines. Through site visits and hands-on practices, students will also learn how food culture is developed and integrated in the society.

PSU professor recognized for research project work

Jan Scholl-Kennedy, associate professor emerita of agricultural and extension education and former 4-H extension specialist in the College of Agricultural Sciences, has been recognized nationally for a project she spearheaded to document the existence of research that undergirds the 4-H youth development program.

Scholl-Kennedy will receive the prestigious Joint Council of Extension Professionals’ Excellence in Extension Engagement Award for her project, “Establishing a Research Base to Sustain the 4-H Program.” As part of receiving the award, she will present a keynote speech at the National Extension Leadership Conference in Savannah, Georgia, in February.

Scholl-Kennedy, who began the project more than two decades ago, exhaustively searched the National Agricultural Library and its archives in Beltsville, Maryland, to document and analyze 4-H research. She subsequently found a rich storehouse of studies from 1911 to the present and indexed them in an online database, which can be found on the Penn State University Libraries website.

PSU holds ‘Plant Yourself in Ag’ Day

“Plant Yourself in Ag” Day returned to Penn State this fall with major changes aimed at connecting even more students to the world of agricultural science.

The event, now in its second year, serves as a learning laboratory for agricultural education undergraduates while also exposing high school students to careers and research topics in agriculture. It took place at Penn State’s Russell E. Larson Agricultural Research Center at Rock Springs, a hub for cutting-edge research and innovative education.

The day is designed to be an immersive and hands-on learning event that introduces Pennsylvania secondary students to the diversity of agricultural careers and academic pathways, as well as acting as a capstone project for agricultural and extension education students who work with researchers to deliver the event’s programming. The date was chosen to land on National Teach Ag Day, the third Thursday in September.

Organizers Rita Graef, director of Penn State’s Pasto Agricultural Museum, and Bethany Mathie, education program specialist, said this year’s event doubled the number of high school students and quadrupled the number of workshops, bringing in 11 principal investigators and 29 graduate student presenters. The number of stakeholders involved in the program also has grown, netting additional support.

During the event, students from a dozen regional high schools spent the day fully engaged on the research farm. Graef said they get hands-on experience doing the same science that researchers are doing in the lab, using some of the same processes, tools and instruments.