Using food in the classroom can help preschoolers learn more about science and increase their vocabulary skills, according to new research from North Carolina State University and East Carolina University.

It also might get preschoolers to taste, or at least touch, the green vegetables on their dinner plates.

Food-based learning is defined as the use of food as a tool to improve children’s dietary behaviors and academic learning related to knowledge (e.g., science, mathematics and literacy) and skills (e.g., gross motor, fine and physical).

Researchers explored whether putting food at the center of learning could spark young children’s interest in science while also learning about nutritious foods grown in North Carolina. They also looked at whether this approach could help teachers explain science concepts more effectively.

“We want to encourage kids to get excited about science and be curious about the world around them. We saw food as a way to get kids excited about learning, because you can also use food as a way to teach so many different concepts, like science, mathematics and language.” said Virginia Stage, an associate professor of agricultural and human sciences at NC State and lead author of a paper describing the study.

“Our work also teaches teachers how you can build those positive experiences with food while you’re also meeting the other learning standards that have to be addressed to get preschoolers ready for kindergarten,” Stage added. “In the meantime, we are also teaching kids about nutritious foods by giving them opportunities to explore food as they learn more about where it comes from, how it looks, smells, feels, tastes, and sometimes, even how it grows, before ever having to eat the food. This method can be particularly helpful for foods that young children are often hesitant to try, like fruits and vegetables.”

After conceiving and implementing an innovative food-based-learning program – called “More PEAS Please!” – for Head Start children in three North Carolina counties, the team examined the program using both quantitative and qualitative methods. It compared more than 125 students who received the intervention with almost 150 who did not.

One of the classroom units for the intervention was learning about seeds, the building blocks of fruits and vegetables. Children looked at and played with different seeds, examined how a seed germinates, tested how seeds grow in different environments – with and without sun and water, for example – and then made a “seed salsa” recipe made with tomatoes and corn.

The results were positive, showing that children receiving the food-based learning intervention increased their understanding of scientific concepts four times more than the group without the intervention. Their vocabulary increased, too, by almost 20% at the end of the school year, while the group without the intervention increased their vocabulary by 6%.

Moreover, the qualitative portion of the study showed that teachers learned a lot about communicating science and nutrition through food.

“We feel like teacher perspectives are critical, because we could be missing something really important about what teachers need to be successful. If we don’t have that context to understand what’s happening in the classroom, we won’t really know how to make the program more effective in the future. We’re investing in the teachers so that they can practice those skills and invest in their kids,” Stage said.

Intervention teachers attend an all-day workshop early in the school year and then receive supplemental resources throughout the year. YouTube whiteboard videos provide additional training. One example: how to talk about science with a four-year-old.

Study co-author Jocelyn Dixon, assistant director and research project coordinator for the Feeding & Eating Education Lab in NC State’s Department of Agricultural and Human Sciences, said that non-pressuring exposures to healthy foods outside of mealtime are an important aspect of the “More PEAS Please!” project.

“We try to reframe what success looks like in this field of working with healthy foods in the preschool space,” she said. “Because we often trap ourselves into thinking that success means that a child ends up eating some broccoli or spinach. But if the last time you did an activity, the child only touched the spinach with a fork, and today the child is open to touching it and tearing it with their fingers – that’s a huge win.

“That’s really the crux of what ‘More PEAS Please!’ is all about. I’m at lunch, and there’s an expectation that I need to eat this spinach, but rather, how can I explore spinach like a scientist as something that we grow in our garden or as an example of a living thing?”

Qiang Wu, Tammy D. Lee and Archana V. Hegde from East Carolina University co-authored the paper, as did Savannah Baldwin and Ashleigh Schmitt from Telamon Corporation Head Start. The paper is open access and is published in the Journal of Nutrition Education & Behavior.

This work was supported by a National Institute of General Medical Sciences Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA).