Food Security Climate Justice Lab

Problem Statement: What are the easiest, most impactful actions we can take to improve food security and secure climate justice outcomes in our community?

Why you should attend…

• You care about food justice and want to teach climate issues in a locally relevant way.
• You are fascinated by complex, intersectional systems.
• You are beginning to realize how each of us “votes” with your food purchasing choices.
• You love it when your students are authentically engaged.
• You find it messy but thrilling to guide students without knowing all the answers.

About the Lab

Everyone eats. Some not enough, some too much, and, as a society, we somehow conspire to waste up to 30% of the food we harvest. Something is fundamentally wrong with our food system.

In this Curriculum Design Lab, we will develop problem-based lesson pathways that can engage students in the intersectional challenges of food security, nutrition, community building, soil science, water conservation, and climate solutions.

Participants will learn from local food system experts, advocates, and organizers about a range of community-based garden projects where community building, food security, and sustainability are integrated. We will study some of the new models emerging for empowering marginalized populations while identifying, analyzing, and dismantling the kinds of systemic inequities that we have allowed to be baked into the food system. We need a new recipe. We need thousands of students grappling with these issues and designing solutions.

What kinds of Impact Projects can students design to meet academic standards in context of improving local food security and securing climate justice? Who is leading on these issues? Who is left out? Who is not yet participating?

PRACTICE  the fundamentals of problem-based, place-based learning.

ANALYZE  community food system case studies in context of climate justice.

APPLY  systems thinking to identify actions, track impact, report to stakeholders.

COACH  student Impact Projects aligned with local food justice action plans.

DESIGN  lessons for application in your classroom.

EXPLORE  career profiles of people who are working on solving this problem.

Associated Standards and Frameworks

• OSPI - Environmental Sustainability Standards
• NGSS - High School Human Sustainability Standards 
• OSPI - Social Studies Standards for Civics, Economics, Geography, History,
• College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies
• Common Core State Standards - English Language Arts/Literacy and Mathematics

Thank you!

Funded in part by King County Wastewater Treatment Division and The Russell Family Foundation