Waste Not, Want Not: Food Waste and Recovery for Food Security
Summary
In this activity, students learn how our food systems affect the global climate and many other environmental issues and impacts related to food. Topics include carbon-neutral agriculture, farming for food accessibility and cultural relevance, food preservation, and how individuals and communities can reduce food waste while promoting food justice, food security, and equitable access to sustainably produced foods. After exploring two case studies of college students who engage civically to reduce food waste and work toward food justice on their campuses, students choose their own campus-based civic action from a list of options.
Learning Goals
1. Analyze the social, economic, and environmental implications of varying scales of farming, including small-scale, industrial, and large-scale agricultural practices, especially with regard to their impact on local communities and global food systems.
2. Evaluate the socio-cultural significance of the diversity of food resources by examining the accessibility and cultural relevance of different food sources, including traditional, organic, and genetically modified foods.
3. Evaluate the relationship between food preservation techniques and social justice, considering how these methods can address food security, reduce food waste, and empower marginalized communities.
4. Propose strategies to promote social justice in food systems by advocating for equitable access to sustainably produced foods, considering issues of food deserts, poverty, and marginalized communities' access to healthy and culturally appropriate food choices.
Context for Use
I am using this multi-week project in an introduction to environmental science and sustainability course at my four-year college with a class size of about 18 students, who typically take the course during their first or second year. Students do not need to have mastered any skills or concepts prior to encountering this activity. I teach this activity right before the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States; the activity begins with a jalapeño-pickling activity, so that students can bring their pickled jalapeños home to their families and perhaps discuss with them what they learned, but it can be done anytime during the term when climate and food sustainability topics are covered. The activity could also be easily adapted for similar courses and class sizes at different types of institutions, including a two-year college, a larger four-year university, or at the high school level. Food justice lends itself especially well to two-year colleges due to the populations of students they serve, which are usually the focus of college-based networks working to reduce food waste and hunger by recovering surplus perishable food from their campuses and communities to donate to those in need.
I collaborate with a local sustainable farm for the pickling activity. Farmers attend one class session as guests, where they lead the pickling activity and provide information about sustainable and carbon-neutral agriculture, farming for food accessibility and cultural relevance, food preservation, and how individuals and communities can reduce food waste while promoting food justice, food security, and equitable access to sustainably produced foods. To implement the pickling activity on your campus, you need access to a kitchen area or other place where food can be safely prepared by students and where you can host your class session on the day of that activity. You also need pickling materials, including but not limited to mason jars and lids, a large pot for boiling water, vinegar, and salt, a vegetable to pickle and a recipe, and food-safe gloves (for jalapeños, specifically, but not necessarily for other vegetables). The materials you need will vary depending on the type of pickling you want and the recipe you use. You can also replace the pickling activity with another food preservation technique, like dehydrating or drying, that would require fewer materials. Additionally, the food preservation activity could be skipped, and the guest farmer could join the class for a conversation, either in person or online.
I use an online learning management system (LMS) to distribute, collect, and grade homework assignments and reflection activities. However, an LMS is not necessary, as instructors can instead print out handouts for distribution to students during class.
Description and Teaching Materials
Instructor Class Preparation: Check links to videos in assignments, gather and organize materials and classroom space for the pickling class session, set up assignments and handouts on a Learning Management System and/or print out assignments and/or handouts, coordinate with a local farm to bring a guest speaker to your class session and arrange for produce from their farm to be brought to your class session, organize campus civic engagement activity options for students.
Step 1: Introductory Homework Assignment (1 to 2 hours): I begin by assigning the reading "Chapter 12: Food and How We Feed Ourselves" from Sherman and Montgomery's Environmental Science and Sustainability textbook, which provides an overview of how our food systems affect the global climate and many other environmental issues and impacts related to food. (I use Sherman and Mongomery's Environmental Science and Sustainability textbook, but similar chapters on climate change and food sustainability in similar textbooks will work (or you can use this resource to replace the textbook chapter: Climate Change and Agriculture: A Perfect Storm in Farm Country.) This reading gives a lot of structure and context to this entire activity. The reading focuses on how the industrial agricultural systems that dominate the world today are major contributors to climate change, as well as what the consequences of climate change can unfold for these and other agricultural systems, including climate-changed rainfall and weather patterns, flooding and droughts, plant diversity, and resilience. The Climate Change and Agriculture: A Perfect Storm in Farm Country can replace the textbook chapter; this article and the video resource cover the same topics as the textbook, except the topic of eating lower on the food chain. Students also watch It's a standard Stone Mountain cul-de-sac: behind one house is a refugee's grand garden, a 10-minute video about a local urban farm that helps refugees establish community gardens for the purpose of selling food at local farmer's markets or for their own use. The video emphasizes the importance of farming culturally relevant foods, which is important for local food initiatives in Atlanta, Georgia in the United States, where my college is located, because the region has a very large population of refugees. Following their reading and this video, students answer reflection questions focused on sustainable agriculture, their own food consumption habits and whether they are habits that support equitable food systems, and on food justice with a focus on healthy and culturally appropriate foods. These before-class reflection questions are a standard part of many assignments that students complete in my course to prepare them for a class session. This assignment prepares them for Step 2 of this activity, which is an in-person class session. After they answer the reflection questions, they read a list of questions that I have already sent to our guest speaker (see Step 2 below). I ask students to prepare at least one additional question each, on their own, and submit it as part of this assignment.
Introductory Homework Assignment.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 15kB May28 24)
Step 2: Food Preservation Activity (2 hours): One or two representatives or workers from a local farm, Love is Love Farms, attend this class session as guest speakers, but instead of formally speaking in front of the class in a presentation, they lead a jalapeño pickling activity during which they answer the questions sent to them ahead of time, as well as additional questions prepared by students (see Step 1 above), as an informal way to deliver their knowledge to students. These questions prompt our guests to share information about their views on sustainable and carbon-neutral agriculture, the challenges they face locally as farmers, how their farm addresses issues of food accessibility and cultural relevance in the communities they serve, how their food preservation techniques (specifically) contribute to food justice and food security and reduce food waste, and ideas they have for how individuals and communities can promote equitable access to sustainably produced foods. We use jalapeños for this activity because pickled jalapeños are a popular food in the region of the southeastern United States where my campus is located, but anything that can be pickled works. The farmers provided the jalapeños, and I used funds from my college to acquire the necessary pickling materials. This activity occurs in a room on our campus with multiple tables and safe food-preparation spaces. Prior to this class session, I set up a different station for each pickling task so that groups of students work at each station to complete a different job. I also start heating the large pot of water in advance, because it takes some time for it to boil. The different stations include slicing jalapeños using a mandolin or knife (whichever students are comfortable with), packing them into jars, preparing the pickling brine, and the final station sealing the jars. The pickling process itself takes about 1.5 hours, and then we need about 20 minutes for clean-up, with which students fully help.
Pickling Activity Handout.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 14kB May5 24)
Step 3: Planning for Civic Engagement Assignment (1.5 hours): Both to introduce students to the civic engagement element of this activity and also to inspire them, I expose them to two case studies of college students who engage civically to reduce food waste and work toward food justice. Students first read Hamilton Students Weigh Their Waste - And Their Actions, which provides an example of a food-waste audit led by students at Hamilton College in New York State (USA) to reduce food waste. A food-waste audit is a standard activity for any college or other organization that is trying to reduce food waste. Students then watch a one-hour long video conversation, facilitated by college students, focused on how the food supply chain impacts the climate and where in the food supply chain food waste can be "rescued" and put to other uses: How FRN's Mapping Data is Driving Impact. FRN stands for Food Recovery Network, which is an organization that unites students at colleges and universities across the United States to fight food waste and hunger by recovering surplus perishable food from their campuses and surrounding communities that would otherwise go to waste and donating it to people in need. The FRN video highlights why local food production and preservation, such as pickling, benefit the climate. This is a long video, and I have given it in lieu of a class meeting due to the timing of this lesson. However, I think that students could easily be assigned 10- or 15-minute segments of the video that highlight the parts most relevant to the class. The FRN video is also focused on mapping, which students do a lot of in my class as a routine part of the course (e.g., Geographic Information Systems, GIS). The video focuses on the connectedness of different communities to food-system supply chains and ensuring that, to prepare for a climate-changed future, communities that are disproportionately affected by climate change are made more resilient to climate-induced disruptions to food systems. Ensuring that this future becomes a reality involves present-day actions to improve food distribution networks, such that vulnerable communities at the edge of these networks are supported in the face of climate breakdowns. The video highlights two-year (community) colleges as leverage points in this network, as places where food insecurity exists today and the infrastructure for a resource distribution network is already in place. Taken together, the Hamilton reading and the FRN video illustrate the role that higher education, and college students in particular, can play in reducing food waste and addressing food insecurity. It can be impactful for students to see what other college students are doing. This civic engagement assignment also offers several options for students' own campus-based civic action (and other options) and assigns a due-date for the action. I give students three weeks to complete their action and complete their reflection assignment (Step 4).
Planning Civic Engagement Assignment.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 15kB May5 24)
Step 4: Civic Engagement and Reflection (1 hour): Students choose from a list of local options for civic engagement, including helping at a campus "Reduce Food Waste" tabling event at our campus dining hall, attending a meeting with our Office of Sustainability to discuss current efforts on campus to reduce food waste and promote food justice, discussing or presenting food recovery issue and strategies with a campus organization in which the student is already a member, or assisting with a local organization that I am a part of (Urban Recipe Food Cooperative) at a food distribution event on our campus. If they cannot manage any of these, I give them the option of contacting a government representative about food justice or posting on social media about it. I schedule the "Reduce Food Waste" tabling event, the meeting with the Office of Sustainability, and the Urban Recipe Food Cooperative food distribution event ahead of time, so that students have only to show up and participate. Each event takes about one hour of students' time once they've arrived. After they've completed their civic engagement, students write and submit to me their answers to two questions that ask them to reflect on various dimensions of what it means to be an engaged citizen, such as the civic skills, knowledge, experiences, perspectives, viewpoints, and/or strategies, and also to reflect on their relation to the civic action in which they chose to participate.
Civic Engagement Reflection.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 14kB May5 24)
Teaching Notes and Tips
Students have a lot of fun with the pickling activity, as it is very engaging and active for them. Also, our farmer guests seem comfortable sharing information informally, as they do the pickling during the activity, as opposed to creating a PowerPoint and giving a formal presentation in front of the class (which they may not do a lot of as part of their career as a farmer nor have time to prepare). Food-safe gloves are important for everyone to wear when working with jalapeños to protect themselves from the flesh and juices, which can be very irritating to eyes, skin, and other exposed body parts. You also need to warn students not to touch their faces or eyes during the activity. Also, prior to the pickling session, my students and I sort out who had prior experience with pickling and who did not have any experience. This helps the class session run more smoothly by allowing us to figure out ahead of time which students would work at the different pickling stations. Before the pickling sessions, I also assign students the order in which they would ask their questions to the farmers during the session. Finally, when inviting local farmers to your classroom for this session, it is a good idea to invite at least two farmers in case one is unable to attend. It can be difficult for farmers to plan too far in advance due to the sometimes unpredictable nature of their profession.
Although the food preservation and pickling activity with a local farm is fun and engaging for students, if it is not possible for you to include something similar in your course right away or at all, you can skip it and instead just talk about it instead of having students actually do it. Step 4 still exposes students to local, sustainable food initiatives. If you would like to make connections with local farmers, a great way to do this is to attend local farmer's markets and get to know the farmers and their farms. That is where I met the farmers from Love Is Love Farms, with whom I work. Most local farmers are interested in partnering with higher education in some way to share what they are doing and often have someone who is community-facing at the farmer's market. You can also meet local farmers by joining or contacting local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) networks. If you want to carry out a pickling activity as I do with local farmers, find out what local foods are culturally relevant to promoting food security in your region, when crops of different vegetables you may want to pickle are in-season and whether the timing lines up with when you want to implement this activity in your course. We pickled jalapeños because the crop was in season and also because my college is in the state of Georgia, USA, where this food is popular (even candied jalapeños!).
To support student civic engagement on your college campus, it helps to start by getting to know the people in your Office of Sustainability and letting them know about your interest in food sustainability and what you are hoping to do on campus with your students. Often there are student groups already working with the Office of Sustainability that may already be doing work around food waste and recovery on campus. I have also found that setting up these events (meetings, tabling, volunteering) for students ahead of time, such that they need only to show up and participate, helps things run more smoothly, and it will be less work for you than if each individual student chose their form of own civic engagement.
Assessment
1. Analyze the social, economic, and environmental implications of varying scales of farming, including small-scale, industrial, and large-scale agricultural practices, concerning their impact on local communities and global food systems.
2. Evaluate the socio-cultural significance of the diversity of food resources by examining the accessibility and cultural relevance of different food sources, including traditional, organic, and genetically modified foods.
For these first two learning goals, I use essay-style exam questions for assessment. My exams are open note, take-home exams, without a time limit, and I give them the questions and the scoring rubric well in advance. I provide each here as separate files.
Essay Questions.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 12kB May5 24)
Essay Scoring Rubric.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 14kB May5 24)
3. Evaluate the relationship between food preservation techniques and social justice, considering how these methods can address food security, reduce food waste, and empower marginalized communities.
I assess this learning goal using the Before Class Reflection Question 3 in the homework assignment for Step 1. The farmers talk to the class about this during the pickling activity (Step 2) as well, so I can listen to student conversations and offer formative feedback during that class session.
4. Propose strategies to promote social justice in food systems by advocating for equitable access to sustainably produced foods, considering issues of food deserts, poverty, and marginalized communities' access to healthy and culturally appropriate food choices.
I assess this learning goal using Question (d) on the Civic Engagement Reflection assignment (Step 4).
References and Resources
This work is supported in part by NSF IUSE grant DUE 2043535.
"Chapter 12: Food and How We Feed Ourselves" from Sherman and Montgomery's Environmental Science and Sustainability textbook (2nd edition)
Climate Change and Agriculture: A Perfect Storm in Farm Country (This article and video resource can be used to replace "Chapter 12: Food and How We Feed Ourselves" from Sherman and Montgomery's textbook.)
It's a standard Stone Mountain cul-de-sac: behind one house is a refugee's grand garden (11 Alive, local news channel in Atlanta, Georgia, United States)
Hamilton Students Weigh Their Waste - And Their Actions (Bon Appetit Management Company)
How FRN's Mapping Data is Driving Impact (Food Recovery Network)
Feeding America (non-profit)
The Southern Diet: A Historical View on Food Consumption and How the Region's Foodways Gets a Bad Rap (Nutrition Today)
Long Misunderstood, Appalachian Food Finds the Spotlight (The New York Times)
Crisp Pickled Jalapeno Slices (recipe)
Candied Jalapenos (recipe)
What To Do With Candied Jalapeños (Southern Living magazine)