Nurish Action Project
For the first project for this biology class we were tasked with making a plan for a long term project that would help our community eat locally to help preserve the environment. After watching documentaries and learning about nutrition, we were tasked to come up with solutions to encourage people to eat local and to help them also make healthy decisions with their diets. We were put into groups of four and given about a week to come up with and to make a prototype for our projects.
My group chose to make a brochure that explained the benefits of eating local and fresh foods, as well as providing information to help clients get fresh foods. My group chose to make a brochure that explained the benefits of eating local and fresh foods, as well as providing information to help clients get fresh foods. My group chose to make a brochure that explained the benefits of eating local and fresh foods, as well as providing information to help clients get fresh foods. This is important because if a food that is produced locally isn't in season then that food in the grocery store has probably been shipped from somewhere far away in the correct climate. It also contains a page that lists farmers markets in our areas as well as their contact information and their hours. It contains a page that lists the fair trade seals and explains what they are. Also a few pages that list the benefits of eating local both at both a large scale and small scale.
Here are pictures of our printed brochure:
Here is the document we made the brochure on:
Concepts From This Unit:
Eating locally - The idea of eating locally means that the food you purchase and buy has been grown and transported within a reasonable distance around your city. Buying food that was grown near you reduces carbon emissions from transport and helps support your local economy and neighbors. Also the methods used to grow these food is usually much more sustainable and additives like hormones, artificial fertilizers, and pesticides are not necessary.
Farmer's Markets - Farmer's markets are a great way to get locally grown food and to support local farmers and gardeners. They are usually open-air markets and they happen on a schedule. The benefits are that you can make connections with your community, get to know the people who actually grew your food, you are guaranteed fresh food, and you are supporting local business.
Foods in season - Foods in season are just foods that are currently being grown in the local fields. Any food that is out of season but in the store means that it's been stored for longer or that it's being transported from another place that does have it in season.
Macromolecules - These are the basic building blocks of every food, and can be a big deciding factor on the nutritional value of the food. The four macromolecules are Lipids, Proteins, Nucleic Acids, and carbohydrates.
Reflection:
I think that overall, this project went really well for us. Our communication and collaboration as a group was very good. We came up with the idea for the brochure very quickly and were all onboard with the idea. We planned ahead and split up the work between us so we could work as efficiently as possible.
We did however run into an issue with the printing. The backside of the brochure printed upside down so the folding didn't work correctly. However this issue would be very easy to fix as we would just have to change the printing settings and reprint it. I also think that we could have taken this project a step further and actually printed out the brochures and distributed them to local businesses.
I think that this was a good project to start the year with and we did really well with it.