Hosted by SALL , contributed by Gaio-Oliveira on 24 November 2022
The budget weight of food is very high in our families and so is food waste: a contradiction that is difficult to understand!
- The 10th grade students sought solutions to these two problems: reducing the weight of food in the family budget, eating better and wasting less.
- The 9th grade students thought: where would surpluses from the Faro Municipal Market go?
- The 8th grade students contributed to the circularity of food and to the fertilization of the existing pedagogical garden at their school, carried out by special education students.
Background
Three primary and secondary school teachers from the João de Deus School Group – Faro, respectively from the subjects Geography A of the 10th year, with 57 students, Biology of the 9th year, with 28 students, Nature Sciences of the 8th year with 56 students, sought out integration of more autonomous learning methods aimed at applying the “Living Lab” pedagogical methodology, in the approach of the Theme “Food Systems”, for more solid, useful learning and achieved with more commitment, autonomy and joy on the part of the students:
Following the work carried out last year in the SALL Project, Professor Anabella Vaz (10th year) challenged the Biology teachers Maria Adelaide Coelho (9th year) and Nature Sciences Sofia Rodrigues (8th year), who left for a new differentiated approach according to their curricular and context realities, but which in common prioritized SDG 11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities and SDG 12 – Sustainable Consumption and Production.
Aim
Starting questions:
Why do we have to make a sustainable use of the planet's resources?
Let's start with ourselves: why do we have to save on food and how to do it?
Are our eating habits healthy?
Say no to food surpluses!
Faced with these questions, the students followed different paths of researching information and disseminating their message to others/community.
Co-creation with societal actors
9th and 10th grade - The two main partners of the Project informed, sensitized and guided the research and knowledge of young people and teachers, and the closest partner, the University of Algarve, made itself available to monitor the phases that were necessary during the year academic. In the online session with the MEP, three students brought her up to date on the work that had already begun and we heard all her comments.
8th year - Students participate in a workshop on vermicomposting, promoted by Eng. Hugo Rato, from the company Ecogrowing. This activity is carried out in partnership with the Clube Ciência Viva na Escola in our Group.
6th year – In the subject of Visual and Technological Education, the students of the 6th E class collaborated in restoring the scarecrow in the school garden and adorned it with recycled flowers.
Thus, the first steps of awareness and motivation were taken, fundamental for commitment to tasks. However, their participation by the partners was only initial, and there was no need for their intervention in other stages of the work.
Implementation
CO-CREATION
The incentive for the Project and its guiding theme came from the CCV- Pavilion of Knowledge in 2020/21.
In this year 2021/22, the team of teachers in our Grouping was different, but a teacher and one of the partners also remained, adding two more partnerships, one business and one institutional (“European Prado to Plate Project”).
Training activities for teachers and students: lectures, watching videos and films.
The information and research work was oriented, in collaborative work by teachers, towards the following objectives, identified by students at different levels of education:
• Understand the need to plan food expenses;
• Differentiate between necessary and superfluous food consumption;
• Distinguish key foods from the Mediterranean diet (local food heritage) and their weight in the daily diet;
• Prefer local and seasonal products as a way of promoting our food sovereignty and demanding food security;
• Apply the circular economy to consumption at home and the reuse of food scraps, following a healthier and more sustainable eating pattern;
At Escola Básica de Stº António, following the pedagogical garden created by Professor Luís Gomes of Special Education with his class of ACS students, did the idea of how to take care of the garden come up? A vermicompustor was fed and studied by the students of Professor Sofia Rodrigues' 8th grade class, in order to contribute to the maintenance of the garden and simultaneously reduce food waste at home. After the workshop, the necessary materials were selected, the vermicompost was assembled and prepared and the space to place it was chosen.
On the other hand, 6th grade students wanted to collaborate in restoring the scarecrow and decorating the garden with flowers made with recycled materials, in the EVT discipline.
EXPLORATION
10th grade – Present research work carried out in class, sharing knowledge with colleagues. Selection of the two best works.
7 SUBJECTS OF WORK CARRIED OUT - 10TH YEAR:
• Why do we have to save on food?
Fulfill the 1st and 2nd SDG
• Why do we have to make a sustainable use of the planet's resources?
Meet the SDGs: Water (6), Soil (15), Forests (15) and Climate Action (13)
• Our growing and future health and well-being depend on eating habits (food traditions and market and individual availability), and are built from childhood.
The Mediterranean food pyramid. The food commandments: Rights and Duties
• Why do we have to contribute to family savings?
The weight of spending on food in the family budget is very significant. Reducing unnecessary expenses and reducing food losses and waste require a careful choice of food options and purchases.
• How to manage our food budget? Contrast two realities: Consumption of a family living in the countryside and an urban family. The necessary and the superfluous; priorities and quantities.
SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities.
• Ethics in food consumption - study at school
School Interviews: Bar staff; students; teachers and staff – presentation of results (strengths and weaknesses and options for improvement).
• Say no to surplus food. The circular economy in food. Transform and create in food preparation.
Share: food bank, Refood and volunteering.
9th grade – Learning to carry out an interview guide, to plan and carry it out, according to the defined research objectives
8th grade – Weekly, students collect organic waste at home (eg, vegetable and fruit peels and trimmings) to put in the vermicompost. On a day of the week to be agreed, the waste is weighed, “feed the worms”, placing the waste in the composter and maintenance is carried out.
EXPERIMENTATION
10th grade - Participation in the III Student Conference on Adaptation to Climate Change, interschool/intermunicipal event - preparation of communications (chosen two, in bold above).
9th year - Elaboration of concluding videos of interviews carried out with traders at the Municipal Market of Faro - "Investigating the fate of leftover food in the Municipal Market of Faro".
8th grade – Collection of humus and its use in the school's pedagogical garden (project promoted by students from the Special Education Unit).
SHARE
10th grade – The papers presented are on Yutube - recording of the event.
9th grade - The three concluding videos, made by 9th grade students, were shared with the entire educational community through the Grouping page.
8th grade - Collection of products and their distribution (use in the school bar, sale and donation to charitable institutions).
EVALUATION
10th year - We managed to carry out what had been planned, after having given up on the initial idea of the theater, which proved to be feasible due to periods of absence from school, due to prophylactic isolation, of students and teachers, which was decisive in the 2nd period. Thus, it was decided to participate, online, in the III Student Conference (…).
9th grade - Through interviews with traders, it was possible to determine the destination of the leftover food in the Municipal Market of Faro.
8th year - Quantification of the amount of humus produced and observation of the results obtained in the garden crops.
All students congratulated themselves for participating in this project.
The trainers showed their satisfaction when they got to know the work that the students were developing and that they achieved.
Reflection
➢ Working on a Living-Lab project is a way of programming in the long term, with a view to achieving concrete objectives and requires the definition of stages and goals between students and teachers.
➢ Work requiring more autonomy from students always results in learning gains. Often slower, but always more solid.
➢ Implementation is always difficult and sometimes, in the face of adverse external and even internal conditions, implementation has to be reconsidered, maintaining, however, the initial objective.
➢ The achieved results surpassed the initial expectations and the gains for the students were evident, they said and demonstrated it.
➢ Training is essential to start a more conscious work, both for students and teachers.
➢ The partnership in national projects, such as this one, brings to its participants the possibility of getting in touch with new strategies, new forms of implementation, that is, greater knowledge in the area of teaching and didactics. We discover people and ways of thinking that we admire, important friendships, personal and emotional enrichment.
➢ Reports are always important sources of recording and reflection, but that time is often difficult to find at the end of a school year.
Futurel Plans
We would like so, with the framework of the Centro de Ciência Viva, but certainly without the same coordination in this grouping, since it will leave teaching in the first period.
The garden maintenance activities will continue, but we do not know with which groups.
The matter about the food we do is part of the “Education for Health” mandatory topic in schools, it will always be addressed.
The approach, living-lab, is characteristic of Natural, Geographical and Biological Sciences. So it will certainly continue. The problem issues and their way of solution, in our case, are dependent on the contractualization that is reached with the students, given their proposals.