Upward Bound Math & Science Summer STEM Academy
Upward Bound is a federally funded program designed to provide support and opportunities for high school students from low-income families and high school students from families in which neither parent holds a bachelor’s degree. Penn State’s Upward Bound Math & Science (UBMS) Program assists students from Harrisburg, Philadelphia, Reading and Pittsburgh area high schools with recognizing their academic potential and cultivating interest in STEM professions through hands-on experience during the UBMS Summer STEM Academy. This six-week summer program provides students with the opportunity to take coursework designed to prepare students for postsecondary education. As part of this program, students have the opportunity to conduct research projects with mentors at Penn State.
Summer 2015
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Along with my friend and colleague Jared Smith, the department's Teaching Laboratory Manager, I served as a research mentor for three young women from the Harrisburg and Pittsburg areas. Our project was titled “What’s Up With Gluten?” and was an investigation of the impact of gluten content on bread quality.
After a primary investigation of the impact of gluten formation on bread quality in wheat flour, we then tasked our students to formulate gluten-free breads using flours from different grains- sorghum, teff, quinoa, rice and rice plus xanthan gum- and measure the impact that these grains had on color, texture, volume and taste compared to a wheat bread control. Using a variety of laboratory techniques including colorimetry and texture analysis of both the crust and crumb of each bread, the students found that while the crust crispness was not affected by the type of flour used, there were significant difference in compressibility between the wheat control and some of the treatments. Breads made from teff, rice flour and sorghum all required greater force to compress the crumb. The students presented these results at a research symposium at Penn State, giving a 10 minute talk about their experiments and findings, concluding with hypotheses for future work which included ideas about how to combine a variety of gluten-free flours to create a gluten-free bread that had qualities similar to wheat bread in terms of color, texture and taste. |
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Interacting with these intelligent, creative and enthusiastic young scientists was an incredible opportunity that only instilled further my desire to teach and share my passion for food science with students of all ages. The icing on the (gluten-free) cake? Their project won first place for the College of Agricultural Sciences Division.
Read a news release about this program from Texture Technologies here.
Read a news release about this program from Texture Technologies here.
Summer 2016
Chocolate bars supplemented with varying levels of high-flavanol cocoa powder, as indicated by percentages.
My second group of Upward Bound students were thrilled to learn that their project featured one of America's favorite confections- chocolate! For a second summer, Jared and I teamed up to mentor three students from Harrisburg and Reading area high schools to develop a chocolate bar that was as healthful as it was delicious with a project titled "Flavanols vs. Flavor: Balancing Health Benefits with Consumer Acceptance in Chocolate Production".
After learning about the primary components of chocolate and taking a tour of The Hershey Company's product development facility in Hershey, PA, our students got to work in Penn State's pilot plant, making 5 kg(!) of chocolate bars supplemented with varying levels of a high-flavanol cocoa powder. During this process, students learned about GMPs and food safety, as well as technical information about chocolate production including refining, conching and tempering. They analyzed the chocolate bars for potential health benefits by performing the Folin-Ciocalteu assay for total polyphenols and measured the inhibitory activity of chocolate bar extracts on phospholipase, an enzyme necessary for fat digestion. Finally, they gave their chocolate a sensory panel, asking them to rank each chocolate bar for liking of attributes including sweetness, bitterness, cocoa flavor and appearance. The students concluded that the chocolate bar supplemented with 25% high flavanol cocoa powder was the best option, as it featured enhanced enzyme inhibition while not being significantly different from the non-supplemented bar in terms of overall liking.
Read more about our adventures in chocolate production here.
After learning about the primary components of chocolate and taking a tour of The Hershey Company's product development facility in Hershey, PA, our students got to work in Penn State's pilot plant, making 5 kg(!) of chocolate bars supplemented with varying levels of a high-flavanol cocoa powder. During this process, students learned about GMPs and food safety, as well as technical information about chocolate production including refining, conching and tempering. They analyzed the chocolate bars for potential health benefits by performing the Folin-Ciocalteu assay for total polyphenols and measured the inhibitory activity of chocolate bar extracts on phospholipase, an enzyme necessary for fat digestion. Finally, they gave their chocolate a sensory panel, asking them to rank each chocolate bar for liking of attributes including sweetness, bitterness, cocoa flavor and appearance. The students concluded that the chocolate bar supplemented with 25% high flavanol cocoa powder was the best option, as it featured enhanced enzyme inhibition while not being significantly different from the non-supplemented bar in terms of overall liking.
Read more about our adventures in chocolate production here.
