Project Progress

Wondering how localEd is doing with promoting local food within the Vancouver school system? localEd is working hard  to integrate local food into the school food system by bringing forth innovative ideas that they hope to be initiated. Through some up and downs this week, the localEd team has really become closer and stronger. In addition to this team bond, the localEd team has clarified their new project objectives and vision.

  Our identified objectives for this week were to:

  • create a realistic proposal to present to our community partner, Fresh Roots
  • meet our community partner representative, Marc Schutzbank in person at his office
  • clarify and finalize project details

We met with Marc to clarify localEd’s collaboration project with Fresh Roots to discuss the potential of launching a pilot program promoting the idea of BC Wednesdays. After an analysis of our proposal with Marc, we realized that it was not the most appropriate given our limited timeframe. It was also decided that student demand for a BC Wednesdays initiative would be imperative for such a project to exist. Consequently, we decided to start simple with a survey for either David Thompson or Vancouver Technical high school students to get a better understanding of what they think about their existing school food system and if the integration of local food is of their interest. As a result of our proposal revision with Marc, localEd has set more realistic objectives and we look forward to working towards them.

 

What:

Realizing that our priorities did not align with the priorities of the Vancouver School Board, localEd needed to change the angle of approach. The initial plan was to run BC Wednesdays as a pilot program to determine the successes and failures of trying to incorporate local food into the school system through weekly school lunches. However, we mistakenly assumed that the schools associated with Fresh Roots would gladly agree with our pitch because they had established schoolyard gardens and had well implemented local food programs. We failed to recognize that providing food to students was not a priority of the VSB, let alone promoting local foods as a part of the cafeteria lunch menu.

 

So What:

Before speaking with our community partner, we were too concentrated in what localEd as a team wanted to achieve and neglected the focus on what the community needed. Feeding students is not one of the priorities of the VSB, and we had to show them that BC Wednesdays was a profitable program that could create jobs and a cascading effect of profitable opportunities. If we are able to find out what students want from their cafeterias and spark an interest in students around promoting local foods, it is possible to create a demand for this and generate enough student interest to kickstart this initiative. If successful, the VSB could see BC Wednesdays as more worthwhile. After listening to all three speakers in “The Moth” podcast, we were reinforced with the idea that in order to identify and solve a problem, we must listen to those who are directly affected by the problem itself. In “The Fish Bank” (Sartin, 2014), Jensi listened to Nyoman’s story about fish disappearing in Balinese waters which led him to implementing a “fish bank” strategy that has repopulated the fish there. In “Grandma Mahembe’s Farm” (Sibanda, 2014), Lindiwe, an advocate for food security, undergoes a self-realization that nutrition security starts in her own hands. In “A Pragmatic Idealist” (Msimang, 2014), Sisonke listens to her friend’s struggles with HIV/AIDS to become a better educator in HIV/AIDS prevention. The successes of these people are undeniably linked with the conversations they have had with people in the community.

There are a few other things we can learn from the three speakers. First, we are in a similar situation as Sartin right now where there is no help or attention from the government. The Indonesian government was clueless and had no solution for the decrease in fish population (Sartin, 2014).

In the same fashion, the Canadian government is stressing on other problems such as healthcare and housing but not nutrition security for students.  However, Sartin was able to come up with a clever idea to save the day without governmental support. localEd should also come up with a plan that will maximally reduce the amount of support needed from authorities. This way, we will also have more control in our own project.

Second, as advocates for local foods, we need to become the students’ role models and practice what we preach. Just like how Sibanda pulled herself out of her junk-food diet, localEd plans to help out at one of the schoolyard gardens to experience the types of ingredients we could potentially use in recipes for BC Wednesdays; hence, we will have a better connection with our resources and have more confidence in presenting our ideas to the community.

Lastly, when doing such community projects, we need to put ourselves in others’ shoes to gain a different perspective of the problem. In Msimang’s story, although she herself does not have HIV/AIDS, she was able to understand the emotional struggle of HIV/AIDS patients by empathizing with them. Just like Msimang, we must accept and understand the different needs and opinions of the students we survey.

 

Now What:

The meeting with Marc provided the clarity we needed to move forward in a realistic fashion. Instead of assuming that there is already an interest in local food within the Vancouver School Board and Vancouver students, we now plan to determine what improvements students want to see in their school food system, and use that data to create excitement about local food. If achieved, we hope that the students’ enthusiasm will show the VSB how vital integration of local food into cafeterias is relevant to student learning.

Our first objective is to administer a survey for the students about their satisfaction with their existing cafeteria setting and the food provided. Next is to conduct a taste test with the students featuring a menu comprised of local foods, and to collect their responses.

localEd is currently directing research on literature relating to school cafeteria surveys as a way to guide the creation of our own survey.

 

Upcoming objectives for this week:

  • Group meeting on Wednesday during our Flex Learning session.
  • Each member will find a scholarly article to find out about other high school students’ thoughts on school cafeteria food. This will guide the creation of our survey
  • Further discussion with Will and Josh about our project outline and actions that need to be taken: need for REB approval to survey high school students, Vancouver School Board contacts, ability to get funding for recipe testing (e.g. food materials, kitchen use, FoodSafe, etc.)
  • Ensure that all group members take the TCPS 2 Tutorial: Interagency Advisory Panel on Research Ethics before running the survey on students
  • Start creating the survey that will be used to test the high school students’ interests on the school cafeteria food and its environment
  • Once finished survey, email to Will, Josh and Marc for approval
  • Finalize a tentative timeline for the project     

 

localEd — Friday Oct 16, 2015