Creative school engagement with FoodSEqual Plymouth
Facilitating food-themed activities to promote experiential learning and build food (system) literacy in a local secondary school
Overview
As part of community engagement activities, the FoodSEqual project team in Plymouth has built a strong relationship with a local secondary school.
Over the past three years, a range of food-themed creative activities have been facilitated by the project team and external collaborators, with a focus on experiential learning about food with the goal of building food (system) literacy in the school.
People involved
- Secondary school students from Sir John Hunt Community Sports college (Years 7, 8, 9) and teachers
- Fotonow CIC
-
Community food researchers - Various Plymouth food system stakeholders
-
FoodSEqual Plymouth research team
Key project activities
Curriculum enrichment programme
Ten secondary school students took part in a week of food-themed activities facilitated by the FoodSEqual Plymouth project team, including:
- Cooking with a Michelin star chef
- Visit to Apricot Centre to forage and cook a meal
- A media workshop run by Fotonow CIC, including filming a food game show to test each other’s food knowledge (watch the video: 'Dinner Takes All')
- Fishing trip from the Barbican followed by a 'Cook your Catch' meal
- A student-led food festival cooking for visitors and students with opportunities to try new foods and share experiences.
Project data were captured through focus groups with students and interviews with teachers.
Participatory film project
A small group of students collaborated with Fotonow CIC to create a series of films, entitled 'Searching for a really good lunch'.
This provided students with the opportunity to learn about filming equipment and processes, such as stop motion animation, and applying these skills in filming their experiences of trying to find a decent lunch for £2.50 (the cost of a free school meal) in Whitleigh. Students also identified four food system stakeholders and conducted interviews using student-led questions.
Visual outputs include a series of co-designed video interviews with local food system stakeholders, including student-made animation sequences.
Co-design of The Plymouth Fish Finger
A pilot project with a school to co-create a fish finger that is both healthy and sustainable, keeping local fish in the local supply chain and avoiding waste. The intention is to get the new co-designed fish finger into the local school meal system and, in the longer term (funding permitting), available for communities to purchase.
We will be providing more updates as the pilot project gets underway in 2024.
Co-production principles
Relationships
This project has focused on building an ongoing relationship with a local school community, while creating new partnerships with creative organisations, chefs, and key food system stakeholders.
Positive outcomes of involvement for students were noted, in terms of learning new skills, an impact on their willingness to try new foods, an enhanced understanding of where food comes from, and an enthusiasm to advocate for local changes within the food system. The creative activities were especially successful, with photography, games and film learning being highly regarded by the students involved.
Knowledge
The level of understanding about food and nutrition and the provenance of food increased markedly over the activities, showing that learning by doing (experiential learning) is key to turning information into knowledge and engaging student interest.
Sharing knowledge using visual methods (with an external creative associate) has been a key part of the success of this. Students upskilling in film and photography, and interviewing people on camera has developed transferable skills.
Inclusivity
Use of creative methods such as games, experiential learning, and hands-on filming activities, were considered key to engaging with young people in this project. The project team noted the importance of ensuring student voices were at the centre of processes, with students co-writing questions for interviews with food system stakeholders, and co-creating new products and visual outputs:
"Engaging with students in the secondary school has been a crucial success for our local community engagement work as part of FoodSEqual Plymouth. The creative approaches have worked well, students have responded positively and embraced the challenges involved – this is an ongoing collaboration which builds inclusive relationships; it aligns with the philosophy of co-production because it gives power back to the students, allowing them to be in the driving seat to co-design and deliver powerful visual project outputs that support the aim to transform the local food system."
(Dr Clare Pettinger, PI FoodSEqual Plymouth)
