This week’s achievements and objectives
So far, we have finalized the project proposal including our goals, methods, and intended outcomes.
In the meantime our objectives for the upcoming weeks include, working on the logistics of the workshop in terms of materials and budgeting. We also need to establish a clear understanding of the age group targeted, any food allergies or restrictions, and expected dates of workshops. This will be achieved by contacting Isabel, the coordinator of the project. Our biggest objective will be to find the perfect healthy dessert which is fun, easy, contains key nutrients for children of this age and of course delicious.
Challenges
We have accomplished so much in the project already with many plans to continue doing so in the next couple weeks. However, we have had some struggles leading to this point. At the beginning establishing contact with our advisor was difficult for various reasons. Establishing contact with our partner was a turning point in our project. Our questions have now been answered and we are moving forward with the project with a clearer understanding.
Moment of Significance
The arbitrary drawing activity in our tutorial!
In our last tutorial, our TA Susanna asked one member of our group to draw an arbitrary drawing privately and then describe it only by words to the rest of our group to draw. Looking at our drawings, each one of us had a different end result. Even though the activity seemed simple and funny, a couple of key concepts arose from reflecting on it.
When we realized how different our drawings were from each other and from the original one, we had to think about the reasons and implications of this activity.
While we are all working together on this project, each one of us had their own vision, expectations, and understanding of the project. While diverse, these visions and expectations should contribute to the overall goals and outcomes of our project. Our project proposal will be a key reference to unify our goals and ensure an effective, organized team.
The activity also highlights a key concept we touched on in our LFS 350 lectures related to the importance of diversity and difference among group members. Our differences, whether in our vision or skills, will be vital for our creativity and success as a group especially in a project like ours that requires a sense of creativity. We will utilize our different skills, interests and competencies to develop the recipes, plan and execute effective workshops.
Our project will incorporate the Gordon Neighbourhood House team, our supervisor, the children, their families, and our LFS 350 coordinators. Hence, our work as a group should take into consideration all these groups of people and their expectations while developing the recipes as well as planning and executing the workshops. Our diverse group have lead to many different visions and ideas of how to execute this project. We have struggled with communication between the team in efforts to incorporate everyone’s ideas. The poor miscommunication within the team has lead to problems regarding workload. We are improving this by assigning each person different sections and then editing all together. The process of us all editing allows each member to add their ideas to collectively make a diverse paper (or blog post). Of course our focus will be on the children and what is most beneficial for them however it is important to think of all the influential groups who impact our team or the kids. We believe that effective communication within our team and those encouraging our team will be essential to achieving that.
What is next?
Firstly, we need to start the literature research about the nutritional needs for the targeted age group – youth, specifically 5-10 year old. Based on our research, we will identify at least three key nutrients and choose available, appropriate food sources taking into considerations locality, seasonality and any food allergies or restrictions.
Then, we will have to explore multiple resources for healthy desserts’ ideas such as cooking magazines, blogs, recipe books, etc. When choosing our recipe we will look for three qualities. First, recipes that are preferably easy to prepare so the kids stay interested and that the assigned tasks are the right difficulty level. Second, fewer ingredients is key so we cans stay on budget and third to incorporate the foods chosen through literature research for beneficial nutritional reasons. We will share insightful information, resources, and appropriate ideas collectively in a common document.
After this process of data collection, we will be ready to develop two healthy desserts recipes including the ingredients and method of preparation as a document. This will include desserts testing for possible improvements and potential technical problems we may encounter. The document will be shared with Isabel for evaluation. A proposed strategy would be a group of two members can work on each recipe with a collaborative reflection on both recipes by all the group before sharing them with Isabel.
Here attached is our project proposal: