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It's About Local Food!  A Workshop Series is a collection of workshops that can be used in the classroom.   For more information contact projectmanager@foodshedproject.ca.

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It's About Local Food! - A Workshop Series

The modules were developed over a period of two years, with the help of Cathy Orlando, Meridith Tyhurst, Tammy Chequis, Nick Wolynsky, Andrea Ouellette, and Doreen Ojala.  Thank you to Lynn O'Farrell-Howie (Social Planning Council) and Alice Haasyk (Sudbury Food Connections Network) for their evaluation and feedback.

The following modules are designed for secondary school students as a way to factor local food into their diets and understand their  ecological "foodprint".  The modules are comprised of hands-on activities that engage students in food sustainability issues along three main themes:
1) Waste and Recycling   
2) Nutrition and Health (including food insecurity) 
3) Food Miles and Climate change.

In the last module, students are encouraged to start a project of their own based on their own investigation of the issues that concern them.  It could be to decrease waste, improve nutrition, or reduce food miles (or all).   Youth-led projects will also develop transferable leadership, communications and organizing skills for students.   Proven social marketing and project management skills are employed to ensure successful outcomes for student projects.  

  Website: Community Based Social Marketing
 
PDF Resource: Community Based Social Marketing
 
Website: Project Management Basics
   Report and Video: Youth Engagement in Food Sustainability:  A Review of     Programs in Ontario.  Publication by The Foodshed Project.

Please download the following modules and try them out.  We would appreciate your feedback, as the modules have not been tested or evaluated in the classroom.  Contact us at info@foodshedproject for more information. Resources for the modules are available, including:  1) A Smart Globe (measures food miles) 2)  Calculators 3) Grocery store flyers for one year, from April 2009 to April 2010.   4) Sprouters  5)  Solar oven and 6) various worksheets from the modules,  if required.

  It's About Local Food! - A Workshop Series overview
  It's About Local Food! - A Workshop Series Evaluation Form

Introductory Module
- The introductory module introduces the concept of developing measurable indicators by ranking lunches for food miles, nutrition and waste.  A further exercise would be to  undertake a waste audit of the school. These exercises allow students to get an overall sense of how sustainable they are in their own daily choices and how that impacts the larger school system.  By engaging students in interactive learning activities that measure their own and their schools sustainability, they will want to be involved in developing solutions (Module 4).   The result could be a project to address waste such as starting a composting program for the school grounds, or school cooking club, or a garden.

   Exercise: Ranking Your Own Lunch for health, nutrition, and waste.
   Resource:  Rank Your Lunch PowerPoint Presentation
   Resource: Burgers and Fries Nutrition Facts label

   Exercise: School Waste Audit Introductory Exercise
   Factsheet: What is recyclable in Greater Sudbury?
  
Factsheet: Green Cart Ins and Outs
   Factsheet: Dropping off used batteries at Public Libraries

Module One -
Community Food Security and Food Insecurity - What is your definition of food security?  Is it the ability to buy food - or is it how and where that food was grown?  Is it both?  Try this exercise to find out for yourself.

 
  Exercise: Looking at food security in the Sudbury community

  Published Report:  Grocery Stores and Hunger
   Published Report:  Food Access and Obesity

Module Two - Healthy Eating  - Without a basic understanding of what to eat, and what our bodies need for nutrition, we run into the problem of eating too much junk food - empty calories, lots of fat, sugar and salt.  The exercises in this module are meant to be a tool to understand the importance of eating a balanced diet, and of reading nutritional labels.   A Canada's Food Guide Tracking Tool helps track  eating habits, and can be a guide for self-learners. 

 
  Exercise: Canada's Food Guide Tracking Tool
   Exercise: Nutrition Facts Table Exercise

   Published Report: Knowledge of Canada's Food Guide in Sudbury (S&DHU)
   Published Report: Fruit and Vegetable strategies  (S&DHU).
   Website: Dieticians of Canada Eating and Activity Tracker

Module Three - Food Miles - We all know what food miles are by now - but do you know how many are represented by your dinner plate?  Returning to a locally-based diet is a common sense approach to developing our economy and reducing our carbon foodprint.   These exercises use grocery store flyers as ways to understand where our food comes from throughout the seasons, and the importance of eating fresh, locally grown food.  Be sure to invite a local farmer into your classroom so you can find out more about the local food system - do you know what is grown in our area?

 
Exercise: Counting Your Food Miles using grocery store flyers

  PDF Resource: Community Food Security Assessment Tool Kit
  PDF Resource: What's Cooking in Your Food system?
  PDF Resource: Ecological Impacts of Climate Change

Module Four
- What's your Foodshed Project? Utilizing social marketing and project management skills will ensure successful outcomes - a way to track progress, define tasks, and evaluate progress.   Youth-led projects allow students to be involved in developing their own solutions. 

   PDF Resource: Foodshed Project Guidebook

 
Report: Northern Ontario Child  and Youth Report
  
PDF Resource: Youth and Food Sustainability Poster
   PDF Resource: Community Based Social Marketing
 
  Website: Project Management Basics
   Website: Community Based Social Marketing

   Resource: Enviro - Preparedness and Food - Part 1
 
  Resource: Enviro - Preparedness and Food - Part 2