Toasting Five Successful Years of the Think & Eat Green @ School Project
April 2, 2015
The Think & Eat Green at School Project is a research partnership led by the Faculty of Land and Food Systems (LFS) at the University of British Columbia (UBC). It is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada. For a full list of project partners, please visit the project website.
Earlier this month, UBC researchers, students and community members were welcomed to the Think&EatGreen@School (TEGS) closing conference, a full day celebration of the five-year Project, featuring presentations related to food, sustainability and education at Vancouver Technical Secondary School.
The TEGS initiative aims to create healthy and sustainable food systems at elementary and secondary schools throughout the Lower Mainland.
The conference welcomed various speakers – including professors, community partners and students – who engaged in discussions of the program, and the importance of food system, ecological and healthy food education at a grade school level.
Past student participants spoke about how they have been positively impacted by the program’s focus on the importance of healthy eating and sustainable food production; many of these students have since become leaders in food, sustainability, environmental, nutrition and health education in the UBC and Vancouver community.
The conference also featured presentations from City Councilor Andrea Reimer, a representative of Vancouver’s Greenest City Initiative; UBC Professor Emeritus Lee Gass, Former Canada’s Professor of the Year; and Zenobia Barlow, Director of Berkeley’s Centre for Ecoliteracy, who framed the event within a larger context of ecological education and sustainability on a global scale.
Dr. Rojas speaks at the 2013 TEGS Institute
The TEGS project’s Principal Investigator Alejandro Rojas and Research Coordinator Gwen Chapman also emphasized the program’s enormous success and provided an optimistic outlook for the future of ecological education. TEGS projects will continue on after the official end of the program.
LFS graduate student and TEGS contributor Stephanie Shulhan remarked on the conference’s sense of community, accomplishment and positive outlook for the future. “I was especially happy to see that everyone is eager to make sure that this community of learners and the work that it does keeps going strong,” remarked Shulhan.
The TEGS program has made an invaluable contribution to ecological education for students, and has had wide-reaching impacts throughout the Lower Mainland community.
On March 28, the final portion of the two-day experiential learning Think&EatGreen@School Institute was held at David Thompson Secondary. The Institute hosted 80 teachers and K12 students from Metro Vancouver, and featured a combination of plenaries and hands-on workshops focusing on different components of the school food system: food gardens and orchards; composting and waste management; food procurement; food preparation and consumption; innovations in teaching and learning; and school food policies. To view photos and materials from past Institutes please click here.
- Watch a short documentary about the Think & Eat Green @ School Project on Youtube.
- Download past reports and abstracts for scholarly publications from project researchers
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