Growth opportunities.
Hall, Olivia M.
The summer before her senior year, Ivy Mumo '14 yearned for a
new challenge. "I wanted to try research, because that was the one
experience I was missing at Cornell," she says. Mumo found her
frontier in the lab of Nancy Wells, associate professor of design and
environmental analysis, where as a Cornell Cooperative Extension summer
intern she investigated children's diet and physical activity.
A nutritional sciences graduate who plans to become a dietitian,
Mumo was drawn to the lab because "I really like how it uses
gardens to improve kids' health and get them excited about where
their food comes from." The Wells lab directed the data collection
and analysis for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's national
Healthy Gardens, Healthy Youth project to study how school gardens
affect children's diet, nutritional knowledge, fruit and vegetable
preference, and physical activity levels.
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Following her internship, Mumo remained part of the lab, benefiting
from its "very positive, inviting atmosphere" and an
interdisciplinary spirit that brings together half a dozen
undergraduates, a staff research aide, and several graduate students.
"One of the fun things about our research is that it resonates
with different majors in the college, including DEA, Nutritional
Sciences, Human Biology, Health, and Society, and Policy Analysis and
Management," Wells says. "Plus, the three PhD students
I've had--Kim Rollings, MS '10, PhD '13, Beth Myers, PhD
'15, and Kristin Aldred Cheek, PhD '17--have backgrounds in
architecture, public health, and natural resources."
Now an assistant professor at the University of Notre Dame's
School of Architecture, Rollings works with Wells on the Cafeteria
Assessment for Elementary Schools (CAFE), a tool to examine how
lunchroom characteristics--from plate sizes and shapes to cafeteria
design and furnishings--influence kids' fruit and vegetable intake.
The research team also developed new ways to measure physical activity
and diet, comparing children's movements and postures during class-
and garden-based lessons and analyzing photos of school lunch trays
taken before and after meals to gauge what students eat.
Ultimately, Wells hopes these measures will be used by researchers,
teachers, and policymakers to consider the impact of the environment on
education. "Hopefully, lots of different kinds of subjects--not
just plant science or biology, but also English--will ultimately be
connected to the garden, and the fact that kids are more active outside
could help make the case," Wells says.
Mumo, for one, says her favorite lab task was data collection, and
as a final project she wrote a research paper on the links between
children's physical activity and vegetable consumption.
"Working with the research team has shown me a different way
to promote healthy eating, such as incorporating hands-on gardening into
schools," she says. "That's something I see myself using
in my future career as a dietitian."
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--Olivia M. Hall, PhD '12
