4th Grade STEAM Teacher, Feeding Futures Fellow

Jackie Joyner-Kersee Academy

Felicia Clay has been teaching for 3 years. She first became interested in Feeding Futures with Pilot Light when she was informed about the opportunity that this program will provide the students in this community. She is looking forward to giving students new healthy meal and snack choices to share with their families during their time as a Fellow. Felicia has been with the JJK Academy since August of 2021. She has a STEAM certificate from Maryville University. Within her 3 years with the JJK Academy she has enjoyed encouraging the students to make healthier food choices. She has also assisted in the classroom on every grade level.

Favorite Food Education Standard: FES #7: We can advocate for food choices and changes that impact ourselves, our communities, and our world.

Number 7 speaks to me the most. I believe that if we start teaching our youth the value of healthy food choices that it will spread to their families. I’m hoping that I can help with making this exciting for the students who in turn will be passionate about it when talking to their families. Hopefully this will spread throughout the communities and from the communities outward.

A Favorite Food Memory or Recipe: 

My favorite food memory is cooking with my grandmother after a health issue prompted her to change her eating habits. I enjoyed learning to grow food in her garden and prepare it in a healthy way as well as baking meats instead of frying.

What I’m Most Excited About as a Feeding Futures Fellow: 

I am excited to learn new thing while teaching my students about different foods. Finding out where they come from, different ways to use them and how they benefit our bodies.

My Feeding Futures Food Advocacy Project: 

Family Cooking Classes – parents came in to do parent/child cooking classes at the school

Growing Comparison – research project about the difference between growing vegetables in soil versus hydroponics; presenting results at Community STEAM Fair 

“My advocacy project was in two parts. After a few classes with the 4th grade students they began to open up and talk about their wants and needs in their homes.  I also discovered the lack of knowledge they had when it came to the food/snacks they enjoyed most.  This led me to look into ways that I could get them to help me educate their families as well as their peers about growing vegetables at home and creating healthy alternatives to the snacks they loved.

The first project I worked on was figuring out how to get their families to consider healthier was to prepare meals.  This is where the Family Cooking Classes began.  I recruited as many parents as I could (which was not many) that would be willing to meet one evening a week for six weeks to participate in this class.  While the parents learned how to prepare new items for the family I would with students of all ages to learn how to make their own healthy snacks.

My second project was working with two third grade students on comparing growing their own vegetables in soil verses a hydroponic system.  After completing the the month long comparison we presented the findings at a Community STEAM Fair that was held at the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation on May 6th.”