Blog #2 – Project Proposal + Progress

The middle of the term and reading week has snuck upon us, allowing us to reflect on what we’ve done in our LFS classes in the past number of weeks and what we can work on to improve/build upon these in the future.

Our Proposal Report: Kitchens + Food Programs Proposal

Objectives & Achievements

Week 1

Objective:

Keep up with lectures, tutorials and readings to become more aware of community-based experiential learning, local food insecurity and food justice.

Achievements:
  • Read into and became comfortable with the learning objectives
  • Familiarized ourselves with the different community-based projects
  • Chose projects which spoke to our interests

Week 2 + 3

Objective:

Understand our project and get to know the members of the group

Achievements:
  • Got in touch with our community partner, Teya
  • Met with our community partners in person, and attended orientation along with other groups
  • Read the project description and familiarized ourselves with the project background and goals
  • Crafted a team charter and assigned roles to each member of the group

Week 4 + 5

Objective:

Have a clear idea of what our goals and tasks to complete the project will be

Achievements:
  • Created our group proposal, highlighting the background, significance, research questions, and methods concerning our Kitchen Access project
  • Coordinated with Teya and Save on Foods managers to set up a date and location for our map trialling + data collection
  • Remained in contact with each other to keep updated on new information and tasks needed to be done
  • Explored current resources and information of the asset map
  • Tested out the Vancouver Asset Map ourselves to become more familiar with it

Moment of Significance – What? So what? Now what?

What:

As we didn’t know each other at the beginning of term, establishing a unified and successful group was challenging at first. Being a group of six busy students, it was evident that finding time to meet outside of class time would be difficult, and being a large group with various opinions and viewpoints presented many challenges. Specifically, our communication  skills were lacking considering the amount of work we needed to accomplish.

So what:

There was a moment where collectively as a group we realized that our group wasn’t melding together as cohesively as desired and therefore our commitment in the class had decreased as a whole. Not only would our marks suffer, but so would the project we had been assigned to if we didn’t try harder to improve upon the existing Vancouver Food Asset Map. Though we are all taking other classes, we realized that LFS 350 isn’t just about getting a good mark but about contributing work that will benefit the community and the local food system in Vancouver. We met after an LFS 350 class and decided that we all needed to do better as a group if we wanted to have this positive impact from our project.

Now what:

Through lots of hard work we were able to achieve a positive and cohesive group dynamic while working towards the objectives we set up for ourselves to create and update our food asset map. We are very excited to both add to the map and trial it in various places around the city with members of the community. Though it was a rough start, our group is committed to working our hardest to improve this map for the benefit of others within our community.

Upcoming Objectives

Week 6 + 7

Objective:

Have a successful map trialling session, where we receive constructive feedback from community members upon which to build on our future objectives and methods to approach these issues. Also become more comfortable with working in the community

Strategies to achieve:
  • Practice with group members prior to the actual trialling session
  • Contact Teya if questions arise, and clear any confusion
  • Practice using the Vancouver Asset Map and explaining how to use it
  • Identify gaps in information and/or knowledge in the asset map

Week 8 + 9

Objective:

Learn how to display collected data in a clear and effective way

Strategies to achieve:
  • Clarify how to input and display data
  • Determine where new collected data should be input into current resources
  • Find an efficient method to research and find valuable data

Week 10 + 11

Objective:

Understand what is required to complete a strong and well-done final project

Strategies to achieve:
  • Consult with Teya and our TA to discuss expectations and share advice on ways to effectively compile and present our data for the public
  • Discuss with each other and distribute responsibilities among team members
  • Complete project according to assignment objectives and rubric