Strategies for a Graceful Dismount

Greetings from Group 8, welcome back to our blog! We look forward to sharing our busy week with you, enjoy!

Weekly Objectives:

1. Create a workshop incorporating lessons learned from the previous visit.
   1. Develop a lecture about dairy nutrition using information from other classes.
   2. Develop a game to teach and engage the class
      1. Food Bingo
   3. Make Yogurt to bring to the classroom
      1. Trial Run
      2. Second batch of yogurt for the students to taste
   4. Prepare a presentation on yogurt making including interactive activities
2. Present the workshop to the classroom.
3. Reflect on our observations after the workshop.

Achievements:

1. Successfully made yogurt and had the classroom taste it.
2. Presented Workshop 2 to the 5^th-6^th graders of Livingstone Elementary.
3. Reflected on our observations of the workshop and what we learned during the course of our community based project.

This week our group prepared another workshop to present at Livingstone Elementary. Learning from our first workshop we decided to organize the workshop in a more organized way. The children seemed to enjoy the game last time, however the class was less focused after playing the game. In order to minimize disruptions during our lecture we decided to play food bingo at the end of this workshop instead of at the beginning. Once we finalized an outline for our next workshop we had a few things that we needed to accomplish before the Wednesday. First and foremost we needed to create a batch of yogurt that we could bring to the classroom in order for them to taste homemade yogurt. Second, we needed to develop lectures surrounding the making of yogurt and its nutritional value. Next we had to formulate an easy recipe that we walk the class through. Lastly we had develop unique food bingo cards. We have Holly and Jamie to thank, for putting in the extra effort of obtaining a yogurt maker (and ingredients) and making a fresh batch of yogurt for the entire class.

 

 

 

Last week our group gathered to reflect on our project up until this point. Individually, we thought of moments of significant change that had occurred throughout our project. These events ranged slightly for each of us however there was quite an overlap. We then created a graph that reflected how our interests, goals, and motivation were impacted by these moments. As well as predicting how they will change in the future.

In the TED talk of this week’s reading, we see an interesting story about a native from South Central L. A. where there is lack of access to healthy fresh produce and high obesity rates. Ron Finley initiated gardening on the streets to address the issues, as he mentioned “Food is the problem and food is the solution.”  He points out that kids didn’t know how food affects their mind and body, we need to expose them with healthy foods, since if only junk food is presented to them, it becomes their only option.  His solution is to introduce gardening to the community and make use of their resources that is available, such as vacant lots equivalent to the size of 20 Central Parks, which is capable of growing up to 725 millions tomato plants.  Another important resource is the community, therefore he encourages people of all ages in the community to be involved, especially the kids who are fundamentally the foundation of the future community. However, he is challenged. He received a warrant that requests him to remove his gardens. When he faces this moment of significant change, he quickly comes up with a way to counteract. He sets up a petition on Change.org which allowed him to proceed with his plan. Our group can relate to his experience. Firstly, our group was uncertain about how to approach the research and methods of our CBEL project, then with the yogurt making, we were having a hard time trying to incorporate the demonstration into the workshop, as the duration of fermentation is not quite feasible to our time frame. His persistence is very admirable and reminds us of our initial purpose of the project– To bring food literacy to the classroom. We still included the yogurt demo but we took out the fermenting and boiling of milk to make it more time efficient, and the workshop was still a success.

Moments of significant change in one’s life can fuel inspiration to make a difference. Another example of this was shown in Tristram Stuart’s Ted Talk about the global food waste scandal. When he was 15, he would often go around to grocery stores, bakeries and farms and look through their garbage to find food to feed his pigs. One day, as he was feeding his pigs this food, he noticed a loaf of bread that appeared to be in perfectly good condition, so he decided to eat it himself and ended up having breakfast with his pigs. At this moment, he realized how the food that people considered as “waste” was actually perfectly suitable for human consumption. I would consider this to be a moment of significant change for him, as this realization encouraged him to investigate into the issues in regards to food waste, inspired him to create awareness, and make a change.

Going back to our own moments of significant change, the first event on the graph reflects the conceptual struggles that our group faced at the onset of the project. We all were just familiar and now had to work together to develop a plan for the future. After our initial meeting with our community partner, the outlook improved immensely. We then had a better understanding of what our project was going to entail and how we were going to move forward. Then Midterms and assignments from other courses came, which resembles the 2^nd event on our graph. Once all of us were finished, we were just about to present our first workshop at the school (which is the event marked 3). The first workshop was a success and using what we learned, we made improvement for the second workshop.

In order to keep up with the progress of the project, our group meet outside of class time and is always keeping communication open. We try to stay on the same page and work as team. We hope to continue meeting in order to keep everyone updated, as well as to write our project report and practice our presentation. Developing a timeline for our project is a strategy we use which is helpful to keep us on track.

Thank you for keeping up with our progress, we invite you back for our final blog post on December 4th. Thanks for reading!

Cheers,

Group 8 🙂