Food Protection Trends - September/October 2019 - 395

not specifically measured. Ratnieks and colleagues (28)
quantified the effectiveness of training methods during their
collection of data on insects and flowers and found that
training method has a significant effect on accuracy of the
results, to the point that correct identification of honeybees
and social wasps could be changed. Limitations were related
to not training the teachers or others charged with providing
citizen science instruction. Levels of information taught
from the curriculum and training done were not compared
between participants exposed to food safety material and
those who were not. The training method in this citizen
science study was a food safety lesson developed for high
school classes that focused on correct thermometer usage,
achieving a safe internal temperature, and correctly placing
the thermometer in the turkey. Those who provided the
instruction were not trained on the protocol for delivery or
evaluation of the lesson, and they used the lesson to varying
degrees; some used the material fully, some used it partially,
and some did not use it at all. At Souderton Area High
School, family and consumer science classes utilized only the
survey, and biology classes used the lesson to varying extents,
depending on whether a lesson on food safety was taught
earlier in the year. Some teachers have a school, county or
state curriculum they need to follow to prepare students for
standardized tests, and this may have affected their ability
to use the lesson fully as intended. The food safety lesson
is heavily science-based and may fit better in a biology
class curriculum or teaching schedule than in a family and
consumer sciences class.
The quality of data collected by citizen scientists depends
on how well the data fits its purpose. Wiggins and colleagues
(44) describe it as a "multifaceted evaluation of states such as
completeness, validity, consistency, precision, and accuracy."
In this study, everything from recruitment through data
collection and evaluation was important to collecting data
that was accurate, and the lack of complete implementation
may have altered the study outcomes. Council and Horvath
offer tools for citizen science recruitment, citing resources
such as community partnerships through local science
museums or libraries, social media such as Twitter and
Facebook, or recruitment through classroom engagement
(15). Future recruitment of potential teachers and students as
citizen scientists could include social media components to
gain a wider geographic range of approaches or through local
partnerships that will provide science communication.
Classroom engagement in this project involved 57 participants but may increase with a tool Council and Horvath
used, which involved inviting scientists researching particular
topics related to the project into classrooms so that they
could interact with students (15). The effect of engaging
partnerships was noticeable when examining the geographic
region results; 45 of the 57 participants were from Souderton
Area High School (SAHS) - the only school sampled in
Pennsylvania - and only 12 were from North Carolina (NC).

Teachers at SAHS were provided the food safety curriculum
with the help of individuals who had previous involvement
with NC State's researchers on a previous project, which
made engagement with the classes from this school easier.
Teachers from NC were provided the lesson through a
listserv of two-hundred-plus classes where no follow-up
was done.
The data collected herein via citizen scientists is encouraging, since most respondents demonstrated proper selection, placement and use of a thermometer and cooked their
Thanksgiving turkey to a temperature of at least 165°F; this
data can be used to supplement results obtained through
self-reported survey methodologies as well as observation.
This is a one-time case study, in which a single point in time
was studied after a treatment that may have caused change.
Further studies are needed to more comprehensively develop,
refine, and pilot test classroom information and exercises
related to proper thermometer use in the cooking of poultry
and to expand the demographic and geographic components
of the collection of data by citizen scientists within homes.
Citizen science provides a viable way to collect reliable
and accurate self-reported data from various sources that is
useful in triangulating food handling practices. Future steps
could include utilizing social media to collect everyday or
event-specific food safety information, utilizing citizen science as a component of a mixed-methods study. The methodological strategy on its own provides a snapshot of practices,
but coupling it with other data collection methods could
provide synergy. The collected data was obtained in two
forms, text and picture, allowing for verification of results.
Although the current study focused on whole turkeys, citizen
science data collection can be applied to other food products
of interest.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors thank the high school teachers and students
of Pennsylvania and North Carolina for pilot testing
and for incorporating and/or using this lesson in their
classrooms, and the North Carolina Family and Consumer
Sciences organization for providing a lesson template. The
authors are grateful to the teachers of Souderton Area High
School for allowing us to use their classrooms, specifically
biology teachers Karen Wolfe, Colleen Hartman, Nick
Chiarolanza, Val Ford, and Patrick Murphy, as well as
Reno Palombia, Family and Consumer Sciences Education
Consultant in North Carolina, for helping distribute the
curriculum through email. This material is based upon
work that is supported by the National Institute of Food
and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under
award number #2012-68003-30155. Mention of trade
names or commercial products in this publication is solely
for the purpose of providing specific information and does
not imply recommendation or endorsement by the U.S.
Department of Agriculture.

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