19. Growing Chefs!

Project Description

Note: This project will take place online

Context/Background

Growing Chefs! was established in 2005 to:

• Empower kids and connect communities through food
• Increase accessibility to nourishing, culturally-relevant foods
• Support a just and thriving food system
• Improve the health, education, and social experience of kids and youth

In our primary and intermediate classroom programs, kids engage in the whole food cycle — from seed, to plate, to compost. Led by teams of chefs and community volunteers, classes engage in a series of edible education lessons filled with discussions, games, and activities that cover themes including growing food, vegetable exploration, cooking, nutrition, and foods around the world.

In collaboration with Fresh Roots, we have developed LunchLAB (Learn, Access and Build), a collaboration between Growing Chefs, Fresh Roots and the Vancouver School Board. LunchLAB is a fun educational program that serves nutritious and delicious lunches prepared by a Head Chef, Chef Educator, and most importantly, student chefs.

LunchLAB is about learning, as much as it is about producing nourishing school meals. With Canada being the only G7 country without a school meal program, our aim is to provide edible education skills to youth, while fuelling their minds and bodies for their daily lessons. Learning with the Head Chef and Chef Educator at each school (Lord Roberts Elementary, Total Education, and as of Fall 2023, Norquay Elementary), students cook lunch for their classmates while honing their knife skills and learning about food safety, food hygiene, nutrition, food literacy and food systems.

Through hands-on sessions, students work as a team to create the menu, prepare food, and serve it to their peers. Lord Roberts Elementary and Total Education (our two ‘founding’ LunchLAB schools) both have gardens in which students get the chance to grow veggies and herbs for their school lunches with their teachers and LunchLAB team. At Lord Roberts, this builds on the school’s edible education program.

LunchLAB is an exercise in growing, learning and sharing to create a barrier-free, happy school food community. Aiming to reach students who really need it, parents/caregivers can sign up their children to eat lunch for an affordable $5. We also know that living in the city can be really challenging financially, so if students need extra help, the school & LunchLAB can support. Total Education, an alternative program for high school students, does not currently have an in-class edible education component to complement their current LunchLAB programming. Our hope is to, alongside LFS350 students, create supplementary curriculum, workshop(s), and/or activities that would support the students' learning and participation.

Food Systems Issue(s) Addressed in this Project

"Without diminishing the empirical and analytic traditions of western science, we de-center its primacy in order to make space for other perspectives and ways of knowing. This includes (but is not limited to) advancing pedagogical practices that explore the history and traditions of Indigenous peoples, creating courses and curricula that integrate de-colonizing food systems theory and practice, and developing conferences that intentionally bring together scientists/academics, farmers, farm- and food workers, and Indigenous peoples from the host location."

- Sustainable Agriculture Education Association (SAEA)'s Equity Statement

When Growing Chefs! was established in 2005, many of the children we worked with had little to no knowledge of where food comes from or how it is grown. Public conversations about settler colonialism, Truth and Reconciliation, food justice, racial justice, and intersecting forms of oppression had yet to enter the mainstream.

Growing Chefs! programs are dedicated to addressing:

• Disconnection with our food system – in an increasingly gloablised and sped up food system, by empowering and enabling a safe space for kids to grow food and cook for themselves and their school community, they can become better connected to their local food systems, where food comes from.
• Limited access to good food – every student should have access to a delicious, nourishing lunch which fuels the body, mind and planet. LunchLAB helps provide that access to all kids.
• Lack of chances to socialise and share food – by bringing students together at the lunch table to share meals and conversation in a non-stigmatising space, to reflect and reconnect instead of quaffing down calories, they are forging strong relationships with themselves, one another, and their communities

Since we began this work, we have witnessed important revisions to the BC school curriculum, and growing public conversation about colonialism and other injustices. The kids we work with today are much more knowledgeable about food systems and food justice issues than when we started this work almost 20 years ago -- and it's time for our teaching to reflect these important and positive changes. For the remainder of 2023, we are pausing our usual classroom and school garden programming so we can focus our energy and attention on updating the Growing Chefs! curriculum. The LunchLAB program will continue to operate.

During this season of pause, reflection, research, and revision, we are excited to collaborate with LFS 350 students! We hope the LFS students will bring strong research skills, and a fresh perspective on school food literacy work. We are especially interested in bringing anti-oppressive and decolonial principles into our lesson planning: how can we make space for multiple perspectives and ways of knowing when we are designing learning activities?

This work will involve updating our programs, which can happen largely online. However, one or more site visits to the LunchLAB kitchen would be beneficial so students can experience our philosophy in action.

Main Project Activities

• Research high school appropriate edible education themes and ideas
• Interview current LunchLAB stakeholders - target number to be determined with community partner
• Participate in LunchLAB programs to get a feel for what’s on offer (preferred but not required)
• Brainstorm themes for possible curriculum components
• Design an interactive lesson(s) to be utilized as part of Total Education’s edible education component of LunchLAB programming

Main Project Deliverables

• 1-2 edible education in-class workshops or curriculum outlines that complement the Total Education LunchLAB program
  • Each workshop plan to include a materials & equipment list, budget, and facilitators' guide

Student Assets and Skills (preferred or required)

• Gardening knowledge and experience
• Cooking knowledge and experience
• Experience working with children
• An interest in curriculum development
• Curiosity about alternative high school programming and school food
• Interest in K-12 food literacy teaching, and curriculum development in general
• Interest in decolonial and anti-oppressive teaching and learning

Are there any mandatory attendance dates (e.g. special event)?

• To be determined; the starting dates of LunchLAB will be confirmed soon, and it would be great if students could be in attendance for the services

Is a criminal record search (CRS) required?

• Yes - if students decide to do any site visits to volunteer and/or observe LunchLAB
• It would be best to initiate the CRS as soon as possible, before the first community partner meeting, in case students decide to do any site visits later in the term
• CRS process can be completed online. Please request the instructions and login code from the community partner. If additional support is required, contact your TA or the course coordinator

How much self-direction is expected from the students?

• Deciding on the project deliverable(s): Equal leadership between students and community partner
• Developing the activity plan and timeline: Equal leadership between students and community partner
• Scheduling and initiating the communication plan (e.g. weekly Zoom check-in, biweekly email update, etc.): Led by community partner
• Implementing the activity plan (e.g. surveying stakeholder groups): Equal leadership between students and community partner
• Finalizing the deliverable(s): Mostly led by students, with some community partner input

Related Volunteering/Community Service Opportunities for Students

• In order to best understand the LunchLAB program, it would be great if students could attend a service both at Lord Roberts Elementary (to view the edible education component in place), as well as at Total Education (to connect with some of the students and staff making the program happen there); this will be arranged by us. This wouldn’t likely be volunteering - more of an observational role.

Required Reading

Project/Partner Orientation Materials

Students should review these materials prior to the first partner meeting:

• Lyiscott, Jamila (2019). Black Appetite. White Food. Issues of Race, Voice, and Justice Within and Beyond the Classroom. Available from UBC Library. Students should read the Introduction before the first community partner meeting.
• Liu, R., Urquia, M.L. & Tarasuk, V. (2023). The prevalence and predictors of household food insecurity among adolescents in Canada. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 114. https://doi.org/10.17269/s41997-022-00737-2
• Valley, W. et al. (2020). Towards an equity competency model for sustainable food systems education programs. Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, 8(33). https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.428
• https://www.growingchefs.ca/lunchlab (information and video about LunchLAB)
• https://www.growingchefs.ca (information about Growing Chefs as a whole)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlXdOlZbKpI - a rundown of the edible education program already in place at Lord Roberts Elementary to support the LunchLAB program

Additional Materials

• Kids just wanna have fun in the kitchen and garden: How to start an after-school program (manual)
• Educator Resources (Toronto FoodShare)
• Hancock, J.F. (2023). Fifty years later— the legacy of Alfred Crosby’s “The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492.” Economic Botany, 77.
• The Sustainable Agriculture Education Association (SAEA)'s Equity Statement
• Learning, food, and sustainability: Sites for resistance and change. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Available from UBC Library.
• Curriculum Guide to Anti-Racism (BC Ministry of Education)
• Indigenous education resources (BC Ministry of Education)
• Williams-Forson, P.A. (2023). Eating While Black Food Shaming and Race in America. Available from UBC Library
• Fredrick, B.E. (1991). Food and culture: Using ethnic recipes to demonstrate the Post-Columbian exchange of plants and animals. Journal of Geography, (90)1. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221349108979223