Two-hundred University of Kentucky students volunteered at Fayette County 2nd Sunday on a beautiful afternoon in downtown Lexington. Second Sunday (2S) is a joint program put on by several county Extension offices and their affiliates. The program promotes health and wellness for Kentucky residents.
Student volunteers handed out apples and 2S stickers. A small portion of this large group of students were there not as volunteers but as undergraduate researchers. Senior human nutrition students surveyed participants as part of a class research project for NFS 474: Research in Nutrition.
The human nutrition students in NFS 474 had a goal to learn more about 2nd Sunday attendees by conducting brief one-on-one interviews. The class was interested in learning more about the demographic of attendees, how they heard about 2nd Sunday, had they been to a 2nd Sunday event before, and what they thought of the quality of the built environment for physical activity in Lexington.
After the students collected data, they formed groups and began inputting and analyzing the data. Soon they will develop a written summary of their findings and present their data and interpretation in class at the end of the semester as part of their final grade.
NFS 474 students will then make a summary of this information for the 2nd Sunday organizers. This will provide the students in the class an opportunity to participate in a real-life research project while also providing important data/information to 2nd Sunday organizers.
Dr. Tammy Stephenson, instructor of NFS 474 and senior lecturer in the Nutrition and Food Science Department, has a goal to bring one or two students with her to the North American Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture conference in Canada this June. There they will present a poster on this project to meeting attendees.