Curious FEAST

Food, according to Demaio (2016) provides us with the greatest opportunity to fix the planet and our health. Education, without question, will play a central role in determining whether or not we can rise to the occasion. In responding to the opportunity though, educational responses must invite multiple disciplinary perspectives to the table . This is because both the study of food and fixing the planet and our health will necessarily require us to adopt interdisciplinary perspectives and solutions. It also requires us to ensure that critical and creative thinking are included in the mix. Education is therefore presented with a significant challenge given it's current arrangements and usual practices. We urgently need to find new ways of thinking about food and how we might teach about it. Feast, is an attempt to respond to this challenge.

The first stage of the project, funded by the Faculty of Education at Monash University, is directed towards working with pre service teachers across a range of different units including Health Education, Media and Design, Visual Arts and Food Education to create a range of digital media artefacts that respond to the theme Feast. In the final week of semester, student films, memes and food selfies will be showcased in the new Learning and Teaching Building as part of a digital media festival entitled Feast. This is however just the first course as we continue our work in the Faculty to genuinely consider how we might encourage interdisciplinary approaches that foster creative and critical approaches to learning about food in teacher education, and in education more broadly.

Project leaders: Dr Deana Leahy, Dr Rosie Welch and Dr Melissa Wolfe

Faculty of Education, Monash University