Luokanopettajien haastattelututkimus kouluruokailusta ja ruokakasvatuksesta

Tiivistelmä. Maksuton kouluruokailu on merkittävä voimavara ja oppimisen tuki oppilaille ja opettajille, jota on tarjottu jo usean vuosikymmenen ajan Suomessa. Kouluruokailulla on kasvatuksellisia, sosiaalisia ja fyysisiä tavoitteita. Kouluruokailun haasteita nykypäivänä ovat suosion väheneminen ja ruokakulttuurin muutokset. Tämän tutkimuksen taustalla on huoli siitä, onko luokanopettajilla riittäviä keinoja ohjata ja edistää kouluruokailun toteutumista tavoitteiden mukaisesti. Kouluruokailun pedagogiseen ulottuvuuteen kuuluu ruokakasvatus, jonka avulla voidaan edistää syömisen taitoja ja sitä kautta kouluruokailun suosion lisäämistä. Tällä hetkellä ruokakasvatuksella ei ole merkittävää roolia suomalaisessa koulujärjestelmässä. Tässä tutkimuksessa on käytetty laadullista menetelmää, jonka lähestymistapa on fenomenologinen. Tutkimusintressinä oli selvittää luokanopettajien kokemuksia kouluruokailusta sekä käsityksiä ja keinoja toteuttaa ravitsemuskasvatusta. Tämä tutkimus toi esiin uuden näkökulman asiaan, koska luokanopettajien kokemuksia ja näkemyksiä ei ole tutkittu kouluruokailun osalta aikaisemmin. Työn teoreettinen viitekehys pohjautuu osittain Kyllösen (2021) kandidaatin työn päälle. Tutkimusmetodina oli käytössä puolistrukturoitu teemahaastattelu, jossa haastateltavina oli kahdeksan luokanopettajaa eri puolelta Suomea. Haastattelut toteutettiin etäyhteyksin joulu-tammikuun aikana 2021–2022. Aineiston analyysimenetelmänä on käytetty teoriaohjaavaa sisällönanalyysia. Tutkimustulokset osoittivat, että luokanopettajat pitivät kouluruokailua positiivisena ja oppimista tukevana keinona koulun arjessa. Kouluruokailu oli myös opettajille itselleen tärkeä tauko ja mahdollisuus oppilaiden kohtaamiseen. Haastattelujen perusteella luokanopettajat pitivät sekä kouluruokailun fysiologista että sosiaalista ja kasvatuksellista puolta tärkeinä. Ruokailutilanteessa sosiaalinen ulottuvuus nähtiin merkittävänä kulttuurin ja tapakasvatuksen osalta. Luokanopettajat painottivat kouluruokailun fysiologista välttämättömyyttä. Kasvatuksellisesta ulottuvuudesta korostui etenkin sääntöjen merkitys ruokailutilanteessa. Lisäksi haastatellut korostivat oppiaineiden sisältöjä ruokailun tavoitteiden saavuttamiseksi. Haasteena luokanopettajat näkivät omat keinonsa ohjata ja tukea ruokailun ongelmakohtia, kuten heikosti syöviä oppilaita. Johtopäätöksissä todetaan, että luokanopettajilla on paljon syömisen taitoa tukevia menetelmiä, mutta tavoitteiden saavuttamiseksi tarvittaisiin yhtenäinen toimintalinja valtakunnallisesti. Kotien kanssa tehtävä yhteistyö kouluruokailun tukemiseksi näyttäytyi osittain haasteena ja osittain merkittävänä voimavarana. Tämän tutkimuksen tulokset voivat tukea kouluja niiden suunnitellessa kouluruokailun ja ravitsemuskasvatuksen toteuttamista.Interview study on preschool teachers about school dining and nutrition education. Abstract. Free school dining is a significant resource and learning support for students and teachers that has been offered in Finland for several decades. School dining has educational, social, and physical objectives. The challenges of school lunch today are its declining popularity and changes in food culture. Underlying in this study is a concern as to whether classroom teachers have the appropriate means to guide and implement school meals in accordance with the learning objectives. The pedagogical dimension of school meals also includes nutrition education, which can be used to practice eating skills and thereby increase the popularity of school meals. At present, nutrition education does not play a significant role in the Finnish school system. This study is qualitative in nature with a phenomenological approach. The aim of the research was to find out how class teachers experience school dining as well as gather their perceptions and ways of implementing nutrition education. This study brought a new perspective to the topic, as the experiences and views of classroom teachers regarding school lunches have not been studied before. The theoretical framework of the thesis is partly based on Kyllönen’s (2021) bachelor’s thesis. The research method used was a semi-structured thematic interview, in which eight classroom teachers from different parts of Finland were interviewed. The interviews were conducted remotely during December and January of 2021–2022. Theory-guided content analysis was used as the method of data analysis. The results of the survey showed that preschool teachers considered school dining to be a positive and supportive learning situation in everyday school life. School lunches were also an important break for teachers and provided an opportunity to meet students. Based on the interviews, the preschool teachers considered both the physiological and social, but also educational aspects of school dining, important. In the eating situation, the social dimension was seen as important both in terms of culture and teaching manners. The preschool teachers also emphasized the physiological necessity of school dining. The educational dimension highlighted the importance of rules in the dining situation. In addition, the interviewees emphasized the contents of the school subjects in order to achieve the goals of the eating situation. When asked about challenges, the classroom teachers brought up difficulties regarding their own ways to guide and address the problem areas of the eating situations, such as students who have problems with eating. The findings of the study show that preschool teachers have many different methods to support the students’ eating skills, but that a unified policy would be needed nationwide to achieve the goals. Working together with homes to support school meals turned out to be both a challenge as well as a significant resource. The results of this study may help schools in planning the implementation of school meals and nutrition education

Markers of gut mucosal inflammation and cow's milk specific immunoglobulins in non-IgE cow's milk allergy

Peer reviewe

Intein-assisted bisection mapping systematically splits proteins for Boolean logic and inducibility engineering

Split inteins are powerful tools for seamless ligation of synthetic split proteins. Yet, their use remains limited because the already intricate split site identification problem is often complicated by the requirement of extein junction sequences. To address this, we augmented a mini-Mu transposon-based screening approach and devised the intein-assisted bisection mapping (IBM) method. IBM robustly revealed clusters of split sites on five proteins, converting them into AND or NAND logic gates. We further showed that the use of inteins expands functional sequence space for splitting a protein. We also demonstrated the utility of our approach over rational inference of split sites from secondary structure alignment of homologous proteins. Furthermore, the intein inserted at an identified site could be engineered by the transposon again to become partially chemically inducible, and to some extent enabled post-translational tuning on host protein function. Our work offers a generalizable and systematic route towards creating split protein-intein fusions and conditional inteins for protein activity control.</p

A systematic approach to inserting split inteins for Boolean logic gate engineering and basal activity reduction

Split inteins are powerful tools for seamless ligation of synthetic split proteins. Yet, their use remains limited because the already intricate split site identification problem is often complicated by the requirement of extein junction sequences. To address this, we augment a mini-Mu transposon-based screening approach and devise the intein-assisted bisection mapping (IBM) method. IBM robustly reveals clusters of split sites on five proteins, converting them into AND or NAND logic gates. We further show that the use of inteins expands functional sequence space for splitting a protein. We also demonstrate the utility of our approach over rational inference of split sites from secondary structure alignment of homologous proteins, and that basal activities of highly active proteins can be mitigated by splitting them. Our work offers a generalizable and systematic route towards creating split protein-intein fusions for synthetic biology. Split inteins are powerful tools for designing synthetic split proteins. Here the authors use a mini-Mu transposon screen to map split sites, enabling the development of protein-based logic gates and fine control of protein activity

The Trial to Reduce IDDM in the Genetically at Risk (TRIGR) study: recruitment, intervention and follow-up

Peer reviewe

Molecular Factors of Hypochlorite Tolerance in the Hypersaline Archaeon Haloferax volcanii

Halophilic archaea thrive in hypersaline conditions associated with desiccation, ultraviolet (UV) irradiation and redox active compounds, and thus are naturally tolerant to a variety of stresses. Here, we identified mutations that promote enhanced tolerance of halophilic archaea to redox-active compounds using Haloferax volcanii as a model organism. The strains were isolated from a library of random transposon mutants for growth on high doses of sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl), an agent that forms hypochlorous acid (HOCl) and other redox acid compounds common to aqueous environments of high concentrations of chloride. The transposon insertion site in each of twenty isolated clones was mapped using the following: (i) inverse nested two-step PCR (INT-PCR) and (ii) semi-random two-step PCR (ST-PCR). Genes that were found to be disrupted in hypertolerant strains were associated with lysine deacetylation, proteasomes, transporters, polyamine biosynthesis, electron transfer, and other cellular processes. Further analysis revealed a Delta psmA1 (alpha 1) markerless deletion strain that produces only the alpha 2 and beta proteins of 20S proteasomes was hypertolerant to hypochlorite stress compared with wild type, which produces alpha 1, alpha 2, and beta proteins. The results of this study provide new insights into archaeal tolerance of redox active compounds such as hypochlorite