Post 10 (Final post): Blog summary and Group project presentation!

This will be our final blog post! Can’t believe we made 9 post like this for keeping track of our group project. This is the first time we made a progress blog like this one, and it has definitely been a educational experience for us. We realized that keeping a blog going is a lot of work, and it can be frustrating at times to keep up with the course required contents. For some weeks, our group had lots to write about, but for other we were simply waiting on community partner’s reply to proceed with our project. Because our project is more of a research based project, we lacked media contents of ourselves for our blog. We tried to make use of past Special Olympic games images to fill this gap. A suggestion for future LFS students: Try to keep track of your project with images to have more media content for the blog (ex. take image at every meeting/event). This was something we definitely could have done for our blog. The quality of our blog reflect our lack of experience, we hope that future LFS 350 students can use our blog as a template to build their blogs to be much better!

For the final week of LFS 350, our group did our group project presentation in front of our community partner and class peers. Our group prepared all week for our group project presentation. Everyone had a maximum of 2-3minutes to speak to keep our presentation under the time limit. Workload for this presentation was evenly divided. Personally, I felt good about the presentation, everyone did their part, and our practice for the presentation kept us under the time limit. During the question period of our presentation, Seb answered most of the questions. I heard from other members after the presentation that they wanted to help answer the questions as well, but they lacked confidence in front of the class. Overall, our presentation went very well, some concerns was brought up during the question period on our project result. We will take their advices into consideration for our final report.

Thank you for reading our final blog! For future LFS 350 students reading this blog, we hope for the best of luck with your project! Cheers!

post 9: Final report task distribution

Welcome back to our post!

This week was our last week before our short presentation in front of our class. After 2 month of continuous struggle with project planning and on-going modifications, we have a clear picture of what we want to accomplish for this project, now we just need to divide the task among our group members. We decide to divide task individually instead of meeting and working as a group. This is mainly because of our class schedules time conflicts which made it difficult for us to meet together for the project. It would be nice for us to have more time to work on the project together during some of our lecture times. For us to make use of lecture time for the project will definitely be easier to organize group meetings, and our time spend will be much more efficient. After a brief meeting this Tuesday to divided our task, everyone accomplished their work, and we were able to share our part though Google-doc and facebook. Everything is going well, personally I am excited for the presentations next week to see what everyone else accomplished for their project.

One of the task we hope to accomplish this week was visit a dietitian and get some advice from them to help us with our project. Shi Yuan presenting our group did the interview. Here is a rough overview of the event from her:

We met up with a dietician Dr. Nooshin Alizadeh-Pasdar, PhD, RD on Friday, Nov.22. We wanted to ask for some suggestions and feedback from her on nutritional aspects for our guidelines. She gave as some recommendations:

1. Affordability. GMO free and organic foods are about at least 30% more expensive than conventional foods. Can food services/athletes really afford to buy them?

2. Some GMO free/ organic foods from California are relatively cheaper than those produced in Vancouver. Is locally produced really necessary?

3. Drinks are not necessarily sugar-free. Low sugar is fine. Athletes need extra calories. (Salt as well).

4. Grain–whole grain is better.

5. Eggs– omega-3 fortified eggs are better.

Disappointingly, since she didn’t have any research experience in sport events/big public events, she didn’t give us many recommendations on big scale events. However, she reminded us that foods affordability and FOOD SAFETY are important for a big public event.

Information from Dr. Nooshin is helpful for us. We’ll adjust our guideline accordingly. Thanks Nooshin!

Post 8: Project is on its way!

We apologies there hasn’t been a lot content on this blog lately! Everyone has been busy with the midterms, presentation, and etc. But rest assure! Our project is coming along nicely!

On November 5, our group representatives, Seb and Weber, met again with our community partner from UBC food service. Our SEEDS project coordinator was also there, and she showed us a food procurement project done by LFS students from 4 years ago. It was a well done project by our predecessors. Their food procurement guideline is concise, organized, and educational. Although some of the information is out of dated, we can definitely learn from its structure and apply our knowledge to it and forge a modern version food procurement guideline for the Canadian Summer Olympic Games.

At the meeting, two key concerns for the guideline was brought up by the UBC food service community partner. First concern is the flexibility in the approval standard of our guideline. “Do we want set the standard so high that no one wish to apply? or do we want some flexibility with the guideline?” We decided that we shall be incorporate a point system for the food vender’s manual in order to address this concern. For every category of food, a rating of best, good, and avoid will be given to food in that category. 1 point for best, 0 point for good, and -1 point for avoid. Every food category used in the food manual need to have at least a positive score for it to be approved. This way, we are giving flexibility to the food venders, but also retaining high quality standard for the food manual at the event. Second concern is how we are rating these food standard. Since UBC is hosting this event, our community partner hope to achieve at least the food standard already in place on UBC campus, such as third party certification, free trade, ocean wide food standard, and etc. Our group project will definitely reflect their concern, and we will set the UBC food standard as the basis of our food procurement guideline for the 2014 Summer Canadian Olympic Games.

 

Post 7: Group Reading Presentation

On October 30th, we lead a class discussion revolving around Godfray’s article entitled “Food Security: The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People.” The author identified a number of problems and potential solutions associated with providing food for an increasing and affluent population, while simultaneously mitigating inadequate access on a global scale. Generated discussions circulated around prioritizing problems with the current food system, with our impressions focused primarily on distribution practices and waste management systems.

Our experience with the CBEL program, as well as our interactions with fellow students have exposed us to the unequal distribution of resources in the Vancouver area. While our efforts have been tailored towards a relatively well-funded food procurement system, dedicated to incorporating a multitude of nutritious local produce, our peers have unveiled the paradoxical food insecurity prevalent in the lower-income demographic. The contradiction between social classes in Vancouver demonstrates a a small-scale model of Godfray’s key message, in which global disparity presents a double burden involving catering to the rich while providing for the poor.

Post 6: Reflecting on our project progress

After presenting our project proposal to our community partners at the meeting (You can view our project proposal here: https://blogs.ubc.ca/lfs350project09/?p=56), we also received constructive feedback from other members of the Canadian Olympic Game Organizers and the UBC Food Service representative via e-mail during the week of October 23. One of the key concerns was the scale of our project with our limited time. Our community partner felt that our proposal might be too broad with the limited time that is available to us for this project. They especially pointed out the food map we want to do for this project.

There will be another meeting with our community partner on November 5. Our goal for the next few weeks will be condensing our project proposal, making it more precise and feasible with our class schedule. With regard to our community partner’s concerns on food map in our project, our group decided we will be removing it from our project.  We were also told by our SEEDS program coordinator that there will be a sample food procurement project done by past LFS students available to us as a reference. Our group is really looking forward to this reference! It should be really helpful moving along our project.

Until next time, cheers!

Post 5: Finalizing project direction

This Thursday, our group met for the second time with our community partners from the Seeds program organizer, 2014 Summer Special Olympic organization representative, and UBC food services members to finalize our proposal. We are happy to announce that we have been approved by our community partners to focus our project direction to the nutritional component of food menu. We decided to separate the foods into nutritional and sustainable categories. The organizer expected us to separate the category into more specific groups. This way, they can use these categories as future reference to compare and add more food to the menu. This standardized table will also be a good educational component for athletes and coaches to read and learn during their dining at the games.

For the following week, we will email the UBC food services in order to meet with the dietitians and hopefully receive some food advices for our project. We will establish different criteria for food groups. Our goal for this will be to explain why these criterion are important to distinct different categories of food. After we have sorted food into different groups, we can finally define the term “sustainability” for this project; especially what sustainability means to our group

Project proposal

Introduction:

Since 1968, the year Special Olympics was founded, there are more than 35,000 children, youth, and adults with intellectual disabilities in Canada who participate in at least two Special Olympics programs per year (Special Olympics Canada, 2013). During the summer of 2014, Vancouver will have the opportunity to celebrate athletes from across Canada participating in the Special Olympics. According to the data on the Special Olympics website (2013), there are more than 16, 000 volunteers and coaches that deliver Special Olympics programs in hundreds of communities across Canada. UBC will play a critical role in numerous aspects of the 2014 games, including housing athletes and coaches, hosting events, and supplementing all those involved with nutritious meals.

The subject of food procurement will be a great concern throughout the games, as organizers hope to promote these games with a focus on environmental sustainability. Our team, including Shaoran Li, Meng Xin, Seb Zackowski, Li Tong, Ke Liao, Yuan Shi, Wenbo Liang, and Yuanxi Wang plan on working with Heather Aussem and Matt Dolf, both involved with Special Olympics Initiatives, Loriann McGowan of UBC Food Services, and Liska Richer from the UBC SEEDS program to expand on the current food procurement system, and identify additional measures that maypromote both optimal nutrition and responsible food system management. While past LFS 350 teams have explored the potential of sustainable food procurement, in particular concerning methods of further incorporating produce from the UBC Farm into campus food distributors (LFS 350 Community Food System Project, 2012) , a project of this magnitude may be venturing into new territory for LFS students.

 

Research question:

Going into the project, we proposed the following all-encompassing research question: How can we remain economically viable while maximizing sustainable food procurement practices at the 2014 Special Olympics? After initial discussions with our community partners, we were directed towards a number of areas that our interventions may have the greatest effects on. This allowed us to refine our broad question into a number of tangible applications. We hope to have a high degree of influence over the menu provided by the Totem Park Cafeteria (serving the Athlete’s Village) and the “Hungry Nomad” food truck, both operated by the UBC Food Services, as well as some sway regarding both the Thunderbird Arena concession and external food vendors. Our goal is to define a baseline criteria for what comprises a sustainable menu item, and ensure that all distributors integrate at least a few of these constituents into their food options.

On top of our menu amendments, we hope to instill an educational component in all aspects of our engagement. To inform the population we are serving about the reasoning behind our efforts is as important as the physical products themselves. Our partners involved with Special Olympics Initiatives are excited about the opportunity to incorporate information booths throughout the event explaining the benefits of our efforts to promote food system sustainability. This leads us to expand on our initial research question, and propose another: Can we design standardized guidelines for future events that promote sustainable food procurement? Educating the public may be the first step towards developing these criteria, and the UBC SEEDS program may be able to apply our recommendations to future events, including Imagine Day, Faculty barbeques, and numerous other campus celebrations.

Methods:

We are currently engaged in a thorough literature review in order to gain a better understanding of our own project. Researching similar events may provide us with additional strategies in providing sustainable food options without sacrificing cost-effectiveness. In addition, understanding the quantitative aspects of athlete and spectator participation at past Special Olympics should give us insight into the necessary magnitude of food distribution throughout our event. Lastly, by exploring pre-existing food guidelines, such as those of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games, we may discover policies that we can re-instate, and hopefully give us a foundation of what to base our definition of “sustainable food” on. Though we hope to define our project goals by identifying and refining strategies used in successful events, literature review can only provide a glimpse into similar projects. Therefore, we may need to modify the information we find in order to meet the specific requirements of hosting the Special Olympics in the Vancouver area.

Another research method we would like to employ is based on direct observation of current food procurement practices. Opportunities include examining the current menus of our known food distributors and identifying any potential for modification. While this presents an excellent opportunity to improve the nutritional aspects of our menu plans, it may be challenging to determine the sources of observed ingredients. Thus, it is not a practical method to directly address our objectives surrounding sustainable food procurement.

Perhaps the most crucial research method involves recurrent face-to-face interviews with our community partners. The first meeting allowed us to discern areas of the event that we may influence most, and therefore prioritize our work schedule. Our group was also provided with the Totem Park Cafeteria menu over the course of the games, which we are currently examining for any potential alterations. We would like to ascertain further resources such as this during our subsequent meetings, and work together in order to define the specific criteria that all food distributors will follow. While our community partners possess a wealth of knowledge specific to our project goals, the issue of scheduling prevents many of our team members from attending meetings. It is our hope that interviews will provide a foundation that our team can pursue further opportunities to instill an appropriate event plan.

 

 

Post 4: Proposal presentation

Welcome back to our Blog!

During the past week, our group completed our project proposal! (see Project proposal post for more detail). Unfortunately, our group was not able to complete this in time for our in-class proposal presentation. This is mainly result of miscommunication with our community partner. A quick note to future LFS 350 class seed project group: you should try to set up a timeline with the community partner early, that way your project schedule with the community partner can match with the class schedule. Despite all the difficulties we had with our proposal presentation, our classmates and TA (teaching assistance) was able to help us by point out some flaws we need to work on for this project.

A key issue around “sustainability” was brought to our attention during the propose presentation. We repeated used the term “sustainable/sustainability”, but never really defined what does sustainability mean to us. There are many methods to be sustainable, and that is why we must define the term before we can apply it to our project and help people to understand it. This will be one of the key issue we shall focus on for as progress for the final project.

A quick update on project progress. Our group shall once again meet with our community partner on Thursday at 2pm this week. We will be discussing project direction and timeline. Hopefully it will finalize a plan for our final project! Update on this event will be post! See you again at our next Wednesday post!

Post 3: Meeting with the community partners

During the past week, we had a chance to meet with our community partners! Although not everyone was able to attend due to class conflicts, four members was able to attend the meeting. We were able to meet with two Special Olympic organizers (one via conference call), the Director of the UBC SEEDS program, as well as the UBC Food Service Director. The other Special Olympic SEEDS program on Waste Disposal also joined our meeting with two of their representative.

At the meeting, we discussed potential areas of direction, building off of what has already been established. We discussed ways that may benefit most from our our interaction with they projects. They include the Totem Park cafeteria, several of the cafeteria for the Athletic Village, the Thunderbird Arena concession, the “Hungry Nomad” food truck, as well as external public vendors.

Since our initial meeting with our community partners, our team has been dissecting the menu provided for the Totem cafeteria during the games. We hope to identify any ingredient that may be substituted with either more nutritious or sustainable option. We have been searching the reasons behind sustainable food procurement, and plan to integrate this information into an educational component of our project. We hope to inform the consumers and athlete the type of food they’re eating and the necessity of sustainable food system that produced those food. This can be served as a foundation on which to construct standardized guidelines that the SEEDS program may consult for future food event management.

 

 

 

Post 2: Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC event)

On September 18, 2013, most UBC courses was cancelled to support the attendance of TRC event held in Vancouver. UBC students were strongly encouraged by the university to attend this event. TRC is national-wide event in Canada hoping to collect testimonies from survivor of the First Nation Residential School and increase public awareness of this dark past in Canadian history. During that grim times between 1875-1996, Aboriginal children, as young as 5 years old, were forcefully taken from their parents to be integrated into mainstream society through First Nation Residential Schools. Many were traumatized by sexual and physical abuse due to negligence at their schools, while some never survived to return to their families. For more information about this event, please visit this site: http://moa.ubc.ca/experience/exhibit_details.php?id=1209

The most memorable experience I had at the event was the pleasure of listening to sir Robert Waisman’s personal experience of the Holocaust during World War II. Robert Waisman is a survivor of the concentration camps. His speech led us through his days in the concentration camp. In his voice,  you can hear strength and courage as he spoke of the Holocaust, but also the deep scars that was left on his heart. To be able to stand in front of crowd of people and courageously share his story was truly inspiring and moved tears down my eyes.

Prior to the event, I had learned about the Holocaust and Residential Schools from history textbooks, but they could not remotely compare to the experience of listening to the truth directly from a survivor who had experienced it. Attending this event was a truly worthwhile experience, and I highly recommend your attendance to this event.