Piloting the development of Healthy&Sustainable Food lessons for primary school
This pilot project aims to participatory develop a set of 9 lessons for cycle 2 primary school combining both health and sustainable food learning objectives.
Factsheet
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Schools involved
School of Health Professions
School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences - Institute(s) Consumer-focused Food Production
- Funding organisation BFH
- Duration (planned) 01.11.2022 - 31.01.2024
- Head of project Charlotte Bourcet
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Project staff
Charlotte Bourcet
Eugenia Harms
Rolf Arnold
Franziska Scheidegger-Balmer
Dr. Joyce Haddad - Partner Berner Fachhochschule BFH
- Keywords Food, education, health, sustainability, primary school
Situation
In Switzerland, health costs due to unbalanced diets reach eight billion francs a year and food consumption is responsible for one third of the average Swiss consumption related environmental impact. Eating habits are established in childhood and mostly kept throughout adulthood. Therefore, children are the most important target group to induce a change in food consumption behavior. However, time allocated to food education in the Swiss primary school is practically inexistent and Swiss nutrition promotion for children aged 4 to 18 years old is at its infancy.
Result
Thanks to this first budget, we covered the first Work Package of the project UMAMI meaning: the interdisciplinary definition of UMAMI program framework. In a first step a workshop (31.01.23) with BFH scientists from the whole food value chain (e.g., agronomy, production, transformation, consume, economy, sustainability, and health) mapped the key concepts that children need to learn and understand to be able to make healthy and sustainable food choices. Based on those concepts and a literature review of existing food education programs, UMAMI competency framework was developed. Those competences were grouped into 8 themes (see snapshot below), covering the food system, and shaping the program. Additionally, 4 learning sequences were developed in this pilot phase together with 2 teachers from cycle 1 and 2 (food waste, food culture and pleasure, mindful eating, and food origin). Piloting the sequences development allowed the team to refine the transdisciplinary collaboration process and overcome barriers for an efficient collaboration (e.g., development of a glossary, a guideline, and a further teacher training).
