Dr. Shannon Baker Powell
Shannon Baker Powell, PhD, RN, CNE
“I really feel that the school nurse, when given the appropriate resources, can make a huge impact in the lifelong success of children.”
- Research Interest: Focusing on providing underserved school-age children the tools to develop healthy habits as children that may positively impact their health now and later as adults.
- Innovation: Implementing the FoodMASTER program via school nurses.
- Research Context / Setting: School nurse facilitation of FoodMASTER lessons in grades 3-5.
- Study Design: Feasibility study
- Research Population: School nurses, school-age children
- Intervention: FoodMASTER lesson content.
- Study Variables: FoodMASTER curriculum, student outcomes, school nurse self-efficacy.
- Data Collection Instruments:
- For Students: Nutrition Attitude Instrument, Modified SPAN & 24-hour recall.
- For School Nurses: Nutrition Teaching Self-Efficacy Scale (NTSES), Interview with the school nurse.
- Analysis Methods: Utilize SPSS with preliminary data analysis occurring during the summer of 2019 between school years with final data analysis taking place over the summer of 2020 at the end of the project.
- Collaborators: Nutrition and Education professionals.
- Funding: Via the ECU Medical and Health Science Foundation.
Dr. Powell is researching ways to create synergy between academic learning time and health promotion in children. Children begin to establish health patterns and habits at an early age that will follow them into adulthood. School nurses function in an environment where education is the priority, not specifically health. The FoodMASTER program The Food, Mathematics, and Science Teaching Enhancement Resource (FoodMASTER) is a compilation of programs aimed at using food and nutrition as a tool to teach science and mathematics. This helps create buy in as student school time used doing FoodMASTER lessons is addressing academic learning while also addressing health promotion through teaching nutrition.