Students at the University of Minnesota, Crookston (UMC) have a wide variety of tools that they can use. One learning tool that is used in coursework is Service-Learning. Service-Learning brings the community and UMC students together to work on a specific project. One of these students, Valerie Otteson, went to Crookston High School to work with the school dining services. She wanted to show the high school students the nutritional values of some of the foods that are in their a la Carte line. Valerie took some of the items on the a la carte menu and put the nutrition information along with a picture of the food item and hung them up in the dining area of the school.

Otteson said that her main goal in this project was to get the students "to be more aware of what they eat so that they can eat healthier." For a class requirement Otteson must spend 90 hours working on various community nutrition projects and 45 hours working on Service-Learning projects. She is very close to completing her goal.

According to Anne Riedlinger, the school district's food service director and Otteson's contact person at the high school, "The students appreciate the work that she has done I have seen the students out reading the signs."

Student Work Examples
To view Otteson's finished practicum, click here .