How are advances in technology improving dietary assessment?

Suitable for 14-19-year olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom, STEM clubs and at home.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 technology and food science.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This teaching resource explains the work of dietitians Professor Deborah Kerr and Associate Professor Carol Boushey, and computer engineer Associate Professor Fengqing (Maggie) Zhu. They have teamed up to combine their expertise to develop new technologies to improve dietary assessment.

• This resource also contains interviews with Deborah, Carol and Maggie and offers an insight into careers in dietetics and technology. If your students have questions for the team, they can send them to them online. All they need to do is to go to the article online (see the Futurum link below), scroll down to the end and type in the question(s). Deborah, Carol and Maggie will reply!

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on the team’s research and challenges them to design an app to improve an aspect of health or healthcare.
• In the accompanying podcast, Deborah shares the importance of taking opportunities that come your way and not worrying if you don’t have a plan worked out.
• An animation about the team’s work is available through the weblink, along with a downloadable script.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

If you like these free resources – or have suggestions for improvements –, please let us know and leave us some feedback. Thank you!