School Lunch Tour

Join our museum’s Gallery Guides for a “drop-in” tour of Lunchtime, our special exhibition on the history and development of school lunch.

Visitors will learn about the complicated relationship between food scientists, the government, and the public throughout the last 200 years as ideas about nutrition and education have evolved.

Does school lunch affect student performance? How did innovations in agricultural science lead to the national school lunch program? What challenges do school lunch advocates face today? And why do we have guinea pigs to thank for our understanding of basic nutrition? We will answer all these questions and more!

This tour has an interactive component, too! You’ll have the chance to touch specially chosen artifacts from our handling collection, examine them in detail, and draw connections between your own experiences of school lunch and this fascinating facet of food history.

Drop-in tours are free and no reservations are necessary.

Featured image: Detail of Plastics: American as Apple Pie, advertisement for Dow Chemical Company, 1950.