Falk College students teach nutrition and cooking through hands‑on lessons that empower Syracuse schoolchildren to embrace healthy eating and lifelong food habits.
The fruit salsa with apples, bananas, kiwi, honey and strawberries—and to be scooped with cinnamon tortilla chips—had been placed before the judges.
Only this wasn’t a celebrity chef TV show. In this case, the judges were much more finicky—a classroom of third-grade students from Dr. Weeks Elementary School in Syracuse.
And the final decision? The fruit salsa is a keeper.
“9.0,” said one boy when asked to rate the salsa on a scale of 1 to 10. “9.5,” a girl chimed in. “10.2!” exclaimed another boy.
And when asked about their favorite ingredient, one student shouted, “All of it!”
On this early November morning at Dr. Weeks, the fruit salsa was made by the third-graders with help from Syracuse University students who participate in the award-winning Nutrition Initiative at the University’s Mary Ann Shaw Center for Public and Community Service.
The Nutrition Initiative is based in, and run by, the Shaw Center and funded by the David B. Falk College of Sport, which includes the Department of Nutrition as one its benchmark programs.
The Nutrition Initiative consists of three programs: Books and Cooks, a literacy, culture, and cooking collaboration with Syracuse City School District elementary schools; Food Busters, a program for Syracuse high school students that explores the science behind food through hands-on activities and experiments; and Cooking on the Hillside, where Hillside employees in the Hillside Work-Scholarship Connection program provide cooking lessons to Syracuse high school students.
Shaw Center Assistant Director Carla Ramirez oversees a team of seven Nutrition Initiative leadership interns who create the curriculums, purchase and prepare food, and arrange travel for Nutrition student volunteers who participate in the program.
The current faculty advisors from the Department of Nutrition—Associate Teaching Professor Chaya Charles (Books and Cooks), Associate Professor Margaret Althea Voss (Food Busters), and Associate Teaching Professor Maria Erdman (Cooking on the Hillside)—suggest and review lesson plans for the interns.
The leadership interns for the fall 2025 semester included Nutrition Initiative coordinator Zoya Ansari ’26 (nutrition science major), Trinity Delgado ’27 (exercise science major in the Falk College), Sophie Denham ’27 (neuroscience and psychology major in the College of Arts and Sciences), Lily Judelsohn ’28 (nutrition major), Natalie Kloman ’27 (nutrition major), Mae Neuman ’27 (nutrition major) and Tracey Rodriguez ’27 (nutrition science major).
For the leadership interns, the common threads for joining the Nutrition Initiative are their fascination with nutrition, and their interest in giving back to the Syracuse community.
“Nutrition is important, especially for young children and teenagers to keep their bodies going and to maintain their health to prevent other problems,” Ansari says. “So going into these classrooms and teaching children nutrition is very important, and we’re doing it in a fun way that makes them excited about making food and trying it.”
This article was originally published December 23, 2025 by SU News here.
