Nourish Project

Process of Work

After learning about the food cycle, we were talking about making a final unit project on everything we had learned, and we had less than a week to do it. My group consisted of Ava Ruano, Akash Sutton, and Beatriz Olivera Mendez. First, we had to choose a topic, and we figured that on a unit about growing fresh food, there was no better topic than a guide to growing a fresh food. Our fresh food of choice was the Roma tomato, chosen by Akash Sutton from his personal liking of the fruit. After that, we spent a long time decided we were going to execute this idea. We were torn between risking it and making a brochure or playing it with a slideshow. We eventually figured out that, while an effective brochure would be a solid option, we weren't given enough time to do it well. So we decided to make a slideshow.

We started work quickly on the slide, with a divide and conquer attitude with our working on different slides at once. I worked on the materials overview slide, overviewing everything that you need to make the plant, how these gardening supplies function when growing, and how they come together. I also worked on the water slide, discussing the importance of water as a subject, how essential it is to keep up the life of plants, and what we can do to conserve this resource. I finished my two slides within the same class period as my groupmates did with their 1-2 slides, and we were ready to present.

Our system for presenting was simple yet effective- each person would present the slides that him or her contributed to making in the slideshow. We chose our spot as fourth in the order of all of the other groups and we were ready to go. The presentation wasn't my worst, but it certainly wasn't my best, as some of our group members didn't know which person to pass the speaker notes to, and, like other groups, we hesitated to figure out how to move the slides.

Content

Local Food System: Grow-Harvest-Pack-Transport-Retail-Eat-Dispose-Repeat

Growing: Farmers prepare soil, plant, and tend crops on small farms growing a variety of crops.

Harvesting: Farm workers often gather the ripened crops by hand from the field.

Packing: Farm workers put foods in reusable boxes or bags for transport.

Transporting: Farmers move the food by truck or van to a farmers market, restaurant, or local store.

Retailing: Farmers, restaurant owners, or local store owners sell food to customers.

Eating: People buy, prepare, and eat the food.

Disposing: Communities collect kitchen scraps for composting to add to farm soil. Minimal packaging means less in the landfill.

Industrial Food System: Grow-Harvest-Transport-Process-Package-Wholesale-Retail-Eat-Disposal

Growing: Growers use heavy equipment to prepare soil, and plant and maintain crops on huge farms of single "monocrops".

Harvesting: Farm workers gather the ripened crop from the field using large machinery, harvesting great quantities at once.

Transporting: Transportation workers move the food by air, truck, train ship, or barge. Transporting may happen at many steps and for very long hauls.

Processing: Food processors use factory equipment to chop, grind, dry, boil, can, or freeze food to preserve it or to make it more convenient. Processed food is often greatly altered from its natural state.

Wholesaling: Wholesalers sell and distribute large quantities of foods to stores.

Retailing: Retailers sell foods to customers, usually in supermarkets, grocery stores, or other stores.

Eating: People buy, prepare, and eat the food.

Disposing: People discard leftover food and packaging. While most is recyclable or compostable, much of it ends up in landfills.

Macromolecules: There are four macromolecules that the body needs to get to properly function and stay alive. Four macromolecules are proteins, carbs, lipids, and nucleic acids. All these molecules help the body function and are in different foods. Protein is in meat, lipids are vegetable oil, and carbs are in bread. These marcomolecules work together to build muscle, provide structure, and improve overall health.

Marketing: Different marketing attempts are teach and learn, ask question, find what produces are in your area, grow your own, start garden, create community, make meals with others, meet growers of food, change the menu, ask for local/organic options, more veggies, grains, and fruits, shop wisely, select certified foods with no chemicals, check ingredients, and take a stand, amplify voice, become informed citizen, insist on healthy food.

Connection to Project: This project connects to the unit because of a step-by-step guide to growing a tomato relating to the concept of fresh foods, growing them, and finding places to find them. A part of solving the inadequate food avalibility is spreading awareness about what whole, well-grown food looks like, and a good way to do this is a step, by step guide to growing an example of a whole, well-grown food.

Connection to Other Subject Areas: A positive element of spreading awareness for healthy foods is people being more healthy overall. If we all eat food with healthy ingredients and a positive balance of nutrients, we will be healthier as a people overall. If we are healthier, we can push ourselves to do better things and achieve more, and we will be happier as well. Another benefit of this, is that we would be more environmental by having healthier foods, as less factory foods will be used, shutting down the harmful pollutants of fast foods.