SeasonalSammy

Seasonal Sammy is a free app designed to introduce young users age 4-7 to the concept of seasonal food and nutrition education through engaging coloring content led by Sammy, a cute and quirky NYC rat and his best friend Penelope the pigeon.

Seasonal Sammy offers colorful food education.

For kids: Seasonal Sammy has four seasons worth of coloring pages to show off your creativity. The touch screen is easy to touch and play, making introducing children to healthy food fun.
For grown-ups: Free engaging nutritional education curriculum highlighting seasonal fruits and vegetables. Finished colorings are printable. Works on iPad and iPhone

With Seasonal Sammy, you get:
Over 30 New York centric coloring pages offered, with nutritional curriculum
Help for kids to develop cultural competence, makes new foods fun
Ability to save pictures to photo library for easy sharing
An app that is kid loved; nutritionist approved

Seasonal Sammy has many cultural components, as we explore NYC and the people who live here by immersing ourselves in the culture. Featured places include the Upper West Side, Williamsburg, the Bronx, and so much more! Seasonal Sammy aims to make children comfortable with different cultures through cuisine.

An additional goal of this app is to combat childhood obesity. Childhood obesity is a serious problem in the United States putting children and adolescents at risk for poor health. Obesity prevalence among children and adolescents is still too high. Seasonal Sammy addresses childhood obesity in a positive manner. The app introduces nutrition education concepts such as the importance of calorie count, fiber, vitamins, minerals, sustainability, glycemic index and food safety.

Teaching about seasonal foods is important because they are often more financially feasible, enabling you to eat healthier for a reasonable price. Twelve million children experience food insecurity. Teaching children to purchase food in season may give them access to more food at a better price.

Seasonal Sammy also teaches portioning and the appropriate time periods in which we eat foods. This app also leads to the understanding that there is a life cycle for food and a healthy pattern of consumption.
There is also a free curriculum designed for grown-ups that teach with an entertaining twist. The curriculum gives adults science based nutritional information incorporating peer review data in a fun and engaging way.

Seasonal Sammy incorporates fruits and vegetables from all four seasons and provides 32 coloring pages and 32 bite sized nutrition lessons. This app provides cool things to do at school, in afterschool programs and at home.

“I'm a hungry and quirky NYC rat. I spend most days with my best friend Penelope, she's a pigeon. We search New York City for healthy and yummy seasonal foods. From Coney Island in the summer to Central Park in the winter we go everywhere for diverse foods. Join our tasty team and color us getting our snack on!”-Sammy

“I’m Penelope, Sammy’s BFF and foodie co-pilot on our eating adventures. We are both big snackers and love trying new food like dragon fruit in Chinatown and figs on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. I’m glad you can have fun coloring all our menus and learn cool stuff about nutrition as well. So yummy!”-Penelope

Seasonal Sammy was created by SIMMER, a branch of The Tech Incubator at Queens College (TIQC), is a tech and food collaboration uniting students from multidisciplinary fields to create food and health related technologies. This childhood nutritional education app was created in summer 2019 by Queens College students from the FNES department and the tech incubator--a diverse and talented crew. “I am excited to be part of a forward thinking nutrition education project that breaks the barrier between tech and food.” - P. Langer. “ I am honored to be part of a project that combats childhood obesity through teaching nutritional awareness and balance.” - A. Filingeri