Food Security and Food Justice Toolkit
Food Security and Food Justice Service-Learning Projects
The best service-learning projects are related to classroom instruction, involve student voice and choice, address a researched need, and work with local resources. This toolkit is focused on Detroit/Wayne County but may be adapted for other areas.
Definitions:
- Food Security/Insecurity Food security is a state when people have physical, social and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. There can be food insecurity with and without hunger. Food security is often related to food justice.
- Food Justice Food justice is fair access to fresh/healthy/affordable food and fair wages and treatment of those who harvest, prepare and serve it.
See the HANDOUT below for more teacher-focused background information.
Four Types of Service Projects:
Student action may be direct, indirect, advocacy, research, or a combination of these.
Examples:
|
Direct Service |
Indirect Service |
Advocacy |
Research |
|
Create or work at a food garden |
Conduct a school-wide collection for the local food bank |
Host an event to examine wage and job conditions for food workers |
Create and share a local healthy food guide |
Food-Related Project Ideas
Create a Local Resource Guide
Create a local resource guide to distribute to school community and nearby neighbors; This Community Mapping Activity could identify the closest healthy food sources, including community gardens. It could also include contact information for organizations that can help those who are food insecure.
Start a School Garden
Start a school garden; share products with school community and/or local food banks. Organizations in Community Resources below can be of help.
Volunteer at a Local Garden
Perform service hours/volunteer at a local garden, food bank or other organization that assists with food security. Some of these organizations are identified in Community Resources below.
Investigate Local Food Justice
Research farmworker and local restaurant industry practices and use in-school and social media to educate others about those conditions; invite food workers to speak to your community. See Community Resources regarding Worker Justice
The Resource Links Below Help Guide You To:
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Learning to Give lesson plans teach students about philanthropy concepts and skills.
- Learning to Give lesson plans teach about food security/justice, nutrition, and gardening.
- Information about and free resources from community and other organizations.
1. Learning to Give Philanthropy and Skill-Building
Four Short Videos about Philanthropy
- What is Philanthropy? Defines, describes, and provides examples of philanthropy and service-learning
- Connecting Skills and Interests to Community Needs: Defining the interests and skills that can be used in meeting community needs
- Understanding Advocacy and Action: Examples of the power of advocacy and action.
- Stages of Service-Learning: Steps in the process are outlined here
Lessons and Activities
- Introduction to Philanthropy Lessons at Each Grade Level
- Not sure which issue to pursue? Try the Blue Sky Envisioning Activity
- Need to identify community assets? Try building a Community Map. Locate local nonprofits via GuideStar.org.
Teach Advocacy Skills
|
Grade Level |
Lesson Title |
Link |
Description |
|
Any |
History in Action |
Includes 4-minute video of various movements |
|
|
Grades 9-12 |
Advocacy and Activism Introduction |
Learn from Martin Luther King, Jr. About the tools of advocacy |
|
|
Middle/High School |
Characteristics of Good Advocates |
Describes 8 characteristics |
|
|
|
Determining Advocacy Style |
No right/wrong answers; helps to identify personal advocacy style; pair with “Characteristics” handout |
|
|
|
Spoken Word Poetry for Justice |
Mini-course for teachers: examples, tips to teach Spoken Word poetry |
|
|
Middle School |
Telling Our Stories of Giving |
Unit of 3 lessons; students learn about and practice Newspaper writing; personal narrative and persuasive writing |
|
|
Grades 9-12 |
Writers as Activists |
Look at writers Rachel Carson, Mary Terell, and Alice Walker; 4th lesson is a writing exercise for writing to newspaper or lawmaker. If time-limited, recommend lessons 3 and 4 |
And bring community awareness to your students' work by using this step-by-step media and timeline guide.
2. Learning to Give Food and Garden Resources
- Global Health: Hunger and Food Around the Globe, 3 lessons, grades K-2 Children learn about food insecurity and discuss what it feels like to be hungry. They also learn efforts to bring food to people who are hungry.
- Global Health: Hunger and Food Around the Globe, 3 lessons, grades 3-5 Making healthy and sustainable food choices and learning about food insecurity.
- Food Insecurity, Waste and Food Production, one of a 5 lesson set grades 6-8 Exploration of world hunger, food insecurity, nutrition and farm-to-table production
- Farm to Table and Food Security, an in-depth set of lessons grades 6-8 Requires students to use research, critical thinking, and problem solving about food production/distribution
- Food for Thought: Hunger Around the Block and the World, 4 lessons, grades 9-12 Nutrition, hunger and how to make a difference.
3. Community and Other Free Resources
Videos about Food Justice
Social Justice Learning Institute: Los Angeles students build a community garden [4:30] Video LINK
Food What?!: Youth Empowerment and Food Justice Program [5:00] Video LINK
2017 Detroit Food Security Metrics Report
Urban Farms
There are many in Detroit! Here are a few:
Detroit Black Community Food Security Network and D-Town Farm
DBCFSN’s vision is to advance movement towards food sovereignty while advocating for justice in the food system that ensures access to healthy foods with dignity and respect for all of Detroit’s residents. It operates the seven-acre D-Town Farm on the City’s west side, provides youth education and is currently developing the Detroit People’s Food Co-op. Speaker and volunteer opportunities are available. Contact [email protected] (313) 345-3663
Earthworks, part of the Capuchin Soup Kitchen, operates on Detroit’s east side. Visits to the farm and volunteer opportunities are available. Contact Earthworks Outreach Specialist at [email protected] (313) 579-2100 ext 204
Gardening Expertise and Help
Detroit Public Schools Community District
DPSCD has a Detroit School Garden Collaborative that creates school gardens throughout the city. The program is designed to be a “real-life laboratory” to teach about healthy eating and growing food while increasing student access to fresh produce. The Drew Horticulture Program and The Gardens at Drew are involved in the local Farm-to- Table movement, supplying fresh produce to local Detroit restaurants, food pantries. Garden curriculum lessons are provided that are linked to State of Michigan Science benchmarks. The program is run by the DPSCD Office of Nutrition. (313) 320-9304
KGD's mission is to promote a food sovereign city where the majority of fruits and vegetables Detroiters consume are grown by residents within the city's limits. KGD provides education, equipment and grows transplants for gardens in Detroit, Highland Park and Hamtramck. KGD also operates a small educational farm. Service learning events and tours are available for students ages 12+. Contact [email protected] (313) 757-2635.
Michigan State University Extension
MSU Extension offers Community Food Systems educational programs. For teachers and schools, they include workshops about starting a school garden, site visits and evaluations to support such gardens and teacher professional development. To schedule a workshop or for more information, contact Kristine Hahn, Community Food Systems Educator at (248) 802-4590 or [email protected]
Food Banks
Gleaners Community Food Bank is a vital link between available food and those who need it most. It operates centers in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Livingston, and Monroe counties and provides food to 499 partner agencies, including many local schools. Its “Kids Helping Kids” service-learning program for youth includes a food bank tour, nutrition education, and a volunteer project that will help their hungry peers such as packing food bags for distribution at schools, gardening through their Food Zoo, and creating clay bowls through the Empty Bowls program. For more information, go to https://www.gcfb.org/khk-gleaners. To request a speaker from the Gleaners Speakers Bureau, contact Julie Ptasznik at [email protected].
Find a local pantry @ https://www.gcfb.org/mobiles/ [Note: this site relies on self-reporting and info should be verified]
Worker Justice-Farmworkers
This 24-minute video about the Campaign for “Justice, Dignity and Sustainability” Describes deplorable living conditions of farmworkers [some liken to “slavery”] and the successful campaign to raise wages of tomato workers by targeting fast food and upscale networks; young people are prominently featured.
Here is further information about working conditions for farmworkers and how immigration and labor issues impact these workers. Groups like the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the United Farm Workers and Farmworker Justice are farmworker advocates.
Youth Food Leadership/Entrepreneurship
Detroit Food Academy engages students while they are still in school, emphasizes youth leadership, and surrounds them with supportive networks to ensure lasting success. Its place-based focus on social entrepreneurship contextualizes learning with real-world relevance. After-school Leadership Program: A school-year leadership development program for young Detroiters that culminates in the design and launch of students’ own triple-bottom-line (people, planet, profit) food business. Contact Program Director, Yolanda Scarborough at [email protected].
Free, Ready-to-go Gardening and Food Resources
Food Span is a free, downloadable high school curriculum [3 units/17 total lessons] from Johns Hopkins university that highlights critical issues in the food system (farm to table) and empowers students via a “food citizen” action project. It is aligned to national education standards in science, social studies, health, and family and consumer sciences. The lesson plans include learning objectives, essential questions, time required, handouts, slides, supplies required, and a glossary.
Big Green offers links to guides, videos and classroom activities on managing a garden including planting, watering, harvesting and other topics.
The Teen Food Literacy Curriculum provides detailed discussion guides and instructions for facilitating a 13-session course to teach leadership skills to teens through the lens of food literacy and advocacy.
Gardening for People with Disabilities
The Chicago Botanic Garden has download-able manual
