Who would have ever guessed that 6 years after the pandemic middle-schoolers would still be crazed about sourdough!!

Sure enough, on February 9 at 8 am, registration for our new “Science of Bread Making” 4-day summer science event went online with 16 slots open, and within 30 minutes we were full with a 17-person waiting list. So we opened another 16 slots, creating an AM group and a PM group. The pressure was on for our team of 30 volunteers to create an unforgettable summer science experience June 15-18, 2026 for this crowd – the first offering of this new event on top of the third delivery of the Food Ag & U experience that followed the week afterwards.

Participants started each day with Leadership Activities with Tex Ostvig. Tex managed to set up each session with attentive students, by engaging them with hands-on activities to improve their listening and empathy skills. On the first day the students reported to the test kitchen in the former Home Economics building (now McNeal Hall) in the Department of Food Science and Nutrition. Here they learned not only how to mix flour, water, salt and starter to make dough, how to knead it and proof it, but also about the science of fermentation, what the microbes are doing, and what the effects of the salt and gluten are. These concepts were further reinforced on the second day with the genomics lab and Supercomputing Institute. Here they performed some lab experiments, swabbing q-tips onto surfaces and streaking them onto agar plates to watch microbes grow. They also learned the identities of all the bacteria and fungi that made up the starter culture they used the day before. On the third day, our Plant Breeders and Plant Pathologists guided them in distinguishing seeds from various grains (wheat, rye, barley, oats, kernza). They also got to mix flour from these different crops and compared their stickiness and elasticity, before extracting some DNA from them. Finally, on the fourth day, when the dough they made on the first day gained sufficient flavor and complexity from cold proofing in the refrigerator, the moment all had waited for had arrived – they got to shape, bake and eat their sourdough loaves! The excitement and sheer joy was palpable. And the ice cream and cheese that was served along with the bread was clearly appreciated as well!

Many thanks to Cargill, PepsiCo and the Forever Green Initiative for their contributions which allowed us to provide free registration for 13 individuals this year, and to provide free bussing for 9.

Please check out the gallery which has 4 photos from each day, highlighting the diversity of activities. Miraculously, even though this was the first time giving this camp, each of the 4 days went according to plans. The participants kept asking daily when they would get to eat their bread, and they were not disappointed on the 4th and final day!

Photos Day 1

Welcome session for Science of Bread Making, mixing bread ingredients, campers with balloons filled with yeast fermentation gas and then stretching the sticky dough.

Everyone holding balloons filled with yeast fermentation gas

Following instructions to mix bread ingredients

Photos Day 2

Rock, paper, scissors exercise, examining a petri dish for microbial growth, sequencing microbial cultures and informatics analysis of what microbes were in the food cultures.

Examining a petri dish for microbial growth

Informatics analysis of what microbes were in our food cultures

Photos Day 3

Campers identifying crop by plant and seed, holding a bushel of wheat, extracting DNA from plant material and testing how sticky grains of wheat are with and without gluten.

campers pulling sticky bread dough with their hands

Photos Day 4

Shaping the dough, watching the dough bake in the oven, admiring finished sourdough loafs and a celebration at the end of the week.

A camper admiring their final finished sourdough loaf

a camper squatting down in front of an oven watching the sourdough loaf bake

Group of student campers and adults celebrating the full week of activities

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