Schoolchildren get inside story on the causes of food-poisoning

It was a "whodunnit" with a difference as the group of eight-and nine-year-olds toured the crime scene and began their search for the perpetrator. All they knew was that the "victim" had been done down by food-poisoning.

This was the imaginative introduction to food safety concepts presented yesterday in Dublin by the Food Safety Authority in its contribution to Science Week Ireland, which has 150 scheduled events taking place across the State.

Third-class pupils from Star of the Sea primary school in Sandymount, Dublin, were the first to undertake the Authority's Food Safety Challenge and bring the guilty microbe to book.

The hour-long programme was devised for the authority by ScienceWorks. Pupils were brought to the crime scene by entering a six-feet-by-four-feet "mouth" which led to the stomach and then inside the heart of a microbe.

The food detectives were given lots of clues as to what caused the food to go bad. A slide show reconstructed the crime for them and the challenge ended with a life-sized board game in which the pupils were the moving pieces as they competed to answer questions about the clues.

The children were probably having too much fun to realise that they were learning as they went through the challenge, which finished with the quiz and prizes for everyone.

"This is the way forward," said the chief executive of the authority, Dr Patrick Wall. He said its information and education unit would have a greater impact on making food safer in Ireland than sanctions, fines and legislation.

"It is important to get to the kids. We are a science-led organisation and we wanted to show how science affected food safety," said Ms Patricia Ryall, of the authority's information and education executive. The event was based at the authority's information centre and this, she said, could be visited by any group looking for talks, presentations or information about food safety. Yesterday's activities for primary schools brought 110 pupils into the centre and later this week there will be transition year groups and a training lecture for advanced chefs. The authority could vary the presentations to suit the participants, said Ms Ryall. It was also planning a "mobile road show" to bring presentations to a wider audience outside Dublin.

The teacher with the Star of the Sea pupils, Ms Geraldine Kieran, was delighted with the event.

"It was very good because it was pitched at their level and gave them something that they could all identify with."

The captain of the winning blue team, eight-year-old Stephen Clarke, from Sandymount, said the experience was "very good fun", adding: "It was really challenging and we got to see what a bacteria looks like."