Project Summary

As the population continues to grow, the failure of the current food production system is causing serious environmental and social crises and it is becoming increasingly evident.

The need for a transition to more sustainable food models, capable of feeding people without destroying the planet, will allow us to maintain a high level of wellbeing and health of the population as well as preserve the earthly paradise on which we live, so that our children and our children's children have the opportunity to benefit from it.

In a report entitled 'Cities and circular economy for food' by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the numbers are catastrophic. By 2050 five million people a year could die as a result of problems created by industrial food production. For each euro spent on food with low nutritional value, society pays two euros in health, environmental and ecological costs.

Intensive livestock breeding and intensive agriculture have been over-exploiting natural resources for decades, causing us to consume, in an indirect way, a large quantity of poisons, such as pesticides and antibiotics, which are used without consideration in the production of food in many farms. It also causes deforestation and emissions of huge amounts of greenhouse gases.

In the future, 80% of food will be consumed in cities, so this is where the circular food economy must start, with a drastic reduction in food waste, the reuse of food and the production of food capable of regenerating natural systems.

To improve the current situation and to prevent a dangerous future, we need to focus on these aspects:

1.      Food produced in a re-generative and local way

2.      Getting the most from food

3.      Projecting and marketing healthier foods

The project provides two training courses for teachers:

1)      Circular Economy applied to food by Istituto “Olivetti” (Monza, Italy). According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, regenerative agriculture, local food provisioning, a change in the food and waste cycle could mean a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to take a billion cars off the road and to prevent the degradation of more than 15 million hectares of farmland a year by reducing exposure to pesticides and pollution. Cities, simply by reducing food waste and recycling sub products and organic materials, could generate an economic boost of over 700 billion dollars. This is why it is important for teachers to acquire skills in this subject.

2)      CLIL methodology by Istituto “Giolitti-Bellisario-Paire” (Mondovì, Italy). The results will be the construction of CLIL teaching units produced for the project activities, i.e. recycling food, safeguarding food, respecting food, in the DON'T WASTE FOOD perspective.

The project provides four students mobilities:

1)      Latvia.  After the “Circular Economy” training course, teachers will explain the meaning of Circular Economy through frontal and interactive lessons, in which students should participate in an active way. Then they will work in groups using the cooperative learning to analyse existing good practices at European level on Circular Economy applied to food. At the end of this work, students will gather by country and each team will have to look for good practices of another partner country, in order to create a map that each group, at the end of the work, will present to the others. All works will be in digital format.

2)      Bulgaria.  Students will work on the concept of 21st century agriculture and on organic cultures that produce healthy food, on natural and non-battery farms. Students will analyse the value of food as an element of life and a source of healthy living. Organic agriculture can produce sufficient profit to support a growing global population. Firstly, students will visit an organic farm to learn how products can be grown through a different agriculture from the traditional one. Then, through group works, students will compare traditional and organic farming, using the materials proposed by the European Commission, both in the Learning Corner and on the website dedicated to the subject by the EESC, the European Economic and Social Committee, which dedicates an entire section to food, on the website https://www.eesc.europa.eu/en/search/node/circular%20economy. We will also look at the European Commission's website https://ec.europa.eu/environment/circular-economy/ in order to analyse in depth organic farming, production, consumption and recycling in a scientific way. We will use the methodology based on Inquiry Based Learning (IBL) based on investigation that stimulates the formulation of questions and actions to solve problems and understand phenomena.

3)      Romania.  The basic topic of the third mobility is recycling. How to recycle food, how the last part of the production-consumption-recycling process takes place. Each country will present the work done before the mobility, i.e. the research of how food is recycled in each country, through the interviews and analysis carried out in groups. Afterwards students will interview elderly people, restaurateurs about traditional and modern recipes to build an e-book of recipes with photos of the products made in the school kitchens. They will hear how food was once recycled and reused to prepare other dishes and they will attend a lesson on food safety.

4)      Turkey. This last mobility will be dedicated to the fight against waste.  Students will build the Manifesto of the Fight against Waste, suggesting ways to safeguard food, in the logic of respect for the environment and a respectful and civil society. All the works, carried out by schools, will be collected and will create a mosaic of good practices, built using art disciplines. Other expected results will be:

- The book of ancient anti-waste recipes

- The book of modern anti-waste recipes

- The website with all works (Training Course materials and mobility works)

- A dinner organised by the students with anti-waste recipes.

This last mobility will be the final event with students.

Dissemination moments will be dedicated at the end of each mobility (both for teacher and student mobilities), at the end of the project activities and during the last international mobility. Each school will also foresee a final dissemination of the project.

The objectives of dissemination will be to train, inform and disseminate the materials and contents through:

- Erasmus corner

- project blog/site

- seminars, conferences, workshops

- interviews in the local press and on local TV

- school newspaper

- school website with link to the project in a dedicated area

- videos on Youtube

- social media

- school open days