Teachers TryScience

Part 1: Defining the Local Food System

1. Tell students that after a general look at systems, they will now be thinking about food systems in particular. Inform students that a food system includes all of the people and resources needed for food production, processing, packaging, transportation, advertising, consumption, and disposal of food.
2. Students will now consider why we care about analyzing the food system other than the obvious reason of needing food for survival. Split students into five groups and have each group discuss one of the following questions.

• Group Work Video
  

• How does accessing or purchasing food in different places affect the local sense of community, either positively or negatively? (Think of a large grocery store, school lunch, food truck, farmer’s market, or a small corner store.)

• How does what we eat affect energy levels? (Think about sleep habits, the type of energy different foods provide, etc.)

• How do the production, transportation, and consumption of food affect the local environment, either positively or negatively?

• What role does advertising play in what students at this school want to eat?

• How is the food served at lunch transported to the school?

• Where does waste occur within the food system?

3. After groups have had about 7 minutes to discuss, ask each group to briefly share out the topics that arose during the discussion.
4. Tell students that depending upon the size of the system you are analyzing, it may be impossible to collect and organize an exhaustive set of data. For this reason, it helps to create a model of the system or part of the system.
5. Referring back to the lesson THINK: The Process of Innovation, remind students that models are not just physical representations of objects. Models help reveal cause and effect, but depending upon what data is included in the model, different information can be revealed or lost.
6. Ask students to read the case study “Where will crime hit next?” in the Understanding module of the THINK app.
7. After students have explored that example, ask them what information can be seen in the Blue CRUSH hotspot map (time of crime, location of the crime, location of apartments and retail buildings). Ask students how the information revealed would change if the type of crime was left out of the model. If the location of retail buildings was not indicated?
8. Tell students that they will now apply the same type of thinking to looking at local food systems issues.
9. Now, as a class, create a visual representation of what might be included in a local food system. To start, discuss boundaries. For example, a pond might be considered its own system or it might be part of a larger system such as the water cycle depending upon the level of analysis. As a class, decide how you will define the boundaries of the local food system. Will you use certain streets as boundaries? Are there geographical features that might be better? Social features?
10. Now, identify the inputs and outputs of the local food system.
11. Present students with other representations of food systems, such as the Nourish Food System Map. Ask students to compare and contrast these diagrams with their responses.

Part 2: Modeling the Local Food System: “Sticking Points”

1. Given the complexity of the system, there can be problems or “gaps”. Ask students to list some of the problems they might see within the local food system as defined by the boundaries in Part 1. Remind students that thinking about food systems goes beyond considering nutrition. (Sample answers: high prices, transportation issues, differences in advertising and packaging of healthy vs. non-healthy foods, food safety issues)
2. Ask students how they know those problems exist. (Students might share personal experiences and observations.) Ask students to think back to the Believing videos they watched during the lesson THINK: The Process of Innovation. Do they think personal stories would have been enough to get buy in from others in the examples presented in the videos?
3. In order to get an accurate idea of what issues exist and where in the system these sticking points occur, as well as to get buy in for proposed solutions, it is important to take the foundations of the model of the local food system created in Part 1 and now populate it with data.
4. As a class, decide on one potential problem or “sticking point” to explore.
5. To make the data collection process more manageable, split students into groups based on the local food system inputs, outputs, and processes defined in Part 1. For example, one group might analyze the transportation of food and people within the system, and another group might focus on how food is advertised and marketed. Depending upon the problem you have selected, you do not need to include all of the inputs and outputs of the system.
6. Instruct each group to use the Data Collection Planning Document to develop a detailed procedure for collecting data about their part of the system. Present students with any constraints such as time limits, particular materials, or geographical areas to focus on. Inform students that they will eventually be combining their data to create a fuller model, so they should think about how the information they collect should be displayed. Will they document using photos? Will they collect quantitative data and use graphs? Will they use surveys to interview people and display quotations?

7. Before students can move on to actually collecting their data, they must present you with a completed Data Collection Planning Document.
8. Upon your approval, they should then carry out their data collection process in the neighborhood. This can be done as a group field trip, or can be assigned as a project to be completed as homework.