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What:

           The community-based learning project conducted by our group was done at the Nest at UBC, where we introduced the Vancouver Food Asset Map to the students and interviewed them for their inputs and opinions about the map. The goal of this project was to review the current food assets map, and then build on it by adding new food assets to the map. The questions to be addressed during our data collection included what changes were needed, if the map was easy to follow, and that weather or not they will use the map in the future. The findings from this project will then be taken into account to help improving the Vancouver Food Asset Map with regards to the UBC and its endowment lands.

So what:

The community visits and our survey imply that many of us inside the UBC community are not familiar with the food assets around us even when it’s so close to our life. Many of the students or faculty member we interviewed didn’t aware of the existence of the AMS food bank. When we were doing our survey we thought maybe some of the people we reach will be aware of the food assets but it turns out most of them never thought about it. We wish we could acknowledge the public more about the importance of food assets around school.While we let the people tested out the food asset map we notice a lot people do not have a laptop handy around them, so if we can let them test out the use of map on their phone will be more efficient and useful for the public.I think the food asset map is easy to use however, public usually reach out for more well known and familiar approach such as google map or yelp.

Now what:

There were a few things which we may have tried different approaches to have a better outcome. First, when writing the introduction for our proposal, we didn’t notice that downtown campus was also included when we discussed population living and eating on UBC campus. It made us miss a few informations when we were doing our research about food insecurity and writing our proposal. We would have read through the instruction more detailed, and engage with community partners more often. Also, when we were contacting food assets, mostly we chose to contact them through phone or emails. If we would do this again, we should definitely try physically visits, which may work better for us to gain information, ask questions, and know those assets into more details.

Although our project was not done perfectly, sometimes mistakes and unexpected mess are what can really inspire our creativity, thus we could think more and learn more from them (Harford, 2016). Overall, our group really enjoyed doing this project and worked with the community partners. We did learn a lot from it. Looking forward, we will mainly focus on the presentation showcase and final report.

References

Harford, T.(2016). Tim Harford How Messy Problems Can Inspire Creativity. (Video file). Retrieved from https://youtu.be/aLoXx8qnb14

Objectives:

Week 9:

–       Contact food assets and gain as much information as possible through email, phone or interview

–       Continue seeking for possible food assets that we can add to current map

–       Get familiar with data input and complete the excel spreadsheet

Week 10:

–       Assign tasks to group members for writing the final report

–       Prepare for writing the final report and the presentation

 

Achievements:

Week 8:

–       Received the list from the UBC Endowment Lands of retail food companies who have a business permit to operate in the Endowment Lands.

–       Conducted a list of current food assets on the map, and another list of food assets we can add to current map.

–       Successfully completed the food asset map trailing with UBC food bank and students in the UBC nest, and received feedback from community members.

–      Gained a better understanding on the food asset map.

UBC Food Bank

( source: http://old.ubyssey.ca/news/use-ams-food-bank-increases-significantly/)

The Moment of Significant

Change workshop provided us with an opportunity to reflect on all the significant changes that happened throughout the process of our project. During the tutorial session, Each of us had the chance to rate our knowledge progress and emotional changes through the weeks, and then the ratings were averaged out to show overall significant changes as a group on a graph. This activity gave us an estimate of the performance of our group, and also showed us what is needed to improve.

We drew a graph to reflect our emotion and knowledge changes as a group.  The x –axis represent the week of the term, and the y- axis represent the level of our emotion and knowledge.

 

Emotion and Knowledge graph

 

During our reflection, we found a similar trend of increasing for both knowledge and emotions for the first 3 weeks. As we get to know each member more and more and gain more knowledge from the presentation by Teya, both our emotions and knowledge reached the local highest point at week 3. However, our emotion slipped down to negative on week 4 due to our stress and struggle to finish the proposal. Our knowledge also decreased slightly on this week because we were confused by the instructions of the proposal, and realized that we actually didn’t understand some things that we thought we did.  As we finish up the proposal in week 5, our emotion and knowledge raised again because we were happy about our completion and gained more knowledge about the project.  The Monday of week 6 was Family Day and it was followed by the reading break. These breaks gave us emotional boost.

We expect our knowledge base to increase steadily till the end of the course and reach a high point in week 12, however, we expect some ups and downs for our emotions throughout the term because of the stress of finishing the final report and presentation.

 

The Graceful Dismount

In order to ensure that we will meet our weekly objectives, we schedule to meet at least once a week (often Monday after tutorial, or any day if it is a flexible learning day), and always communicate with each other online in the group chat. We will continue to assign tasks to each member and share responsibilities to complete the project.

First, we will analyze the feedback we received from community members in the map trailing, and give advices about how they can improve the map. Next, we will review the food assets in UBC and the UBC Endowment Lands on the current map, and check to see if we need to fix or update any details. Also, we will follow the objectives above to contact the food assets following the list and ask for more information. But we will always send the consent form to them first to ask for permission. By that time, we will all be familiar with how to input data on the excel spreadsheet, and how to put the detailed information on the food asset map.

After we have finished the data collection and data inputs, we will assign different portions of the final report to each group member. Then we will discuss and communicate with each other to finish the report, as well as the presentation slides.

 

 

LFS350proposal

 

Weekly Objectives and Achievement:

Achievements:

• Established connection with community partners at Vancouver Coastal Health
  Gathered information about the neighborhood and community partner we will work with.
• Finalized group proposal
• Developed a rough action plan.
• Build a tight connection between group members and evaluated everyone’s strength.

Weekly Objective:

• Clarify the information collection format with group members.
• Develop a detailed action plan and divide work between group member according to member’s strength and availability.
• Communicate about the expectation about the project and make sure no misunderstanding or disagreement.

 

Moment of Significance

What:

Although we picked the group based on our interests, none of us had heard about Vancouver Food Asset Map before, We also had very limited experience working on this kind of project. Although we get a better idea of the project after listening to the presentation by Teya, the dietitian from our community partner Vancouver Coastal Health, we still feel that we don’t have enough knowledge to start our proposal. There are much uncertainty. One example is we don’t know how to connect the concepts we learned in class, such as food security, to our project. Another example is we have never written a proposal for a project before. Furthermore, all of us didn’t know each other well before, we feel that sometimes we are not fully comfortable of expressing our ideas. For the reasons above, starting the proposal as the first big group assignment, was a challenge for us.  

 

So what :

Our challenge arises because of unfamiliarity with the concept of Vancouver Food Asset Maps and with different members of the group. The familiarity with food asset maps can be achieved by making sure that group members attend lectures, read required materials, and meet with community partners, then break down the project into smaller and more specific parts for each member. To improve familiarity between group members and to improve performance of the group, one essential factor is of critical importance: trust. Active listening, and respecting the ideas of groups members should be employed to encourage the free expression of ideas within the group, as sharing important information through constant positive communication and interaction has been shown to be highly correlated with high-performing teams (Hakanen, Soudunsaari, 2012).

To start with, we make sure one of attend lecture, did reading,meet community partner , then we decide to break down the parts into three main parts : Introduction, significance, and conclusion. After getting back the draft, we talked to our TA, Francisco, to make sure we understand his comments.  Alison and Alice did the final editing

With the knowledge and understanding from attending lectures and doing the assigned readings for the past few weeks, we are able to start moving forward to begin data collection on assets and work with our community partners.

 

Now what :

After getting the feedback, we will follow the feedback and proposal to continue our project. We will accept the challenges of facing uncertainties and difficulties because they help us grow and learn. Every member should listen to each other’s ideas and comments and help facilitate every discussion effectively. Try to set deadlines to plan ahead and stick to the plan throughout the term. As a group, we are going to work collaboratively to gather all the useful information for making the UBC food asset map more comprehensive.

 

 

Upcoming objectives and strategies

Objective 1 (week 6-7)

– Complete the food asset map trialing session and try to target all the food assets on the UBC campus and endowment lands

Strategies

–       Conduct food asset map trialing at UBC food bank on Monday, March 6th

–       Work with community members during the map trialing session, and receive feedback from them in order to better work with our objectives and strategies in later weeks

–       Contact the UBC Endowment Lands to get the list of retail food companies who have a business permit to operate in the Endowment Lands

 

Objective 2 (week 8-9)

–       Effectively collect data of the food assets and get familiar with data input

Strategies

–       Contact the food assets and gain as much information as possible through phone, email, or interview

–       Understand the processes of data collection and data input (using spreadsheet), and how we can add new information in the current map

–       Group members keep looking for other food assets available on the UBC campus and endowment lands that we could add to the existing data

Objective 3 (week 10-12)

–       Understand the strategies and requirements for completing the final report/presentation, and review our achievements about what we have done in order to sustain food security in communities.

Strategies

–       Discuss within the group and assign different tasks to each member

–       Group members should take our own responsibilities, and complete the project according to the requirements and rubrics

–       Discuss with TA and Teya for some suggestions and expectations

–       Gain feedback from communities for the final project

 

References

Hakanen, M., Soudunsaari, A.(2012). Building trust in high-performing teams. Technology Innovation Management Review. Retrieved from http://timreview.ca/article/567