Babcock Ranch Telegraph

BNS students’ “Food Waste Warrior Project” tackles food waste and hunger simultaneously




BNS teacher Rachel Reinke and her daughter Calla helped man the food collection booth during Food Truck Friday on April 8. ANNALEE HULL / BABCOCK RANCH TELEGRAPH

BNS teacher Rachel Reinke and her daughter Calla helped man the food collection booth during Food Truck Friday on April 8. ANNALEE HULL / BABCOCK RANCH TELEGRAPH

The curriculum at Babcock Neighborhood School includes training in critical thinking because it’s a significant skill the students will need to solve problems in their future work, civic, and personal lives. As they pursue their projects in the school’s project-based learning curriculum, it can be amazing to see how even young students can apply critical thinking to reason out solutions to the real-world problems they’re required to tackle with their projects.

Instructor Rachel Reinke’s sixth grade science students recently undertook a project where they applied critical thinking to determine that an effective way to impact an environmental problem they were studying (waste entering landfills) actually was to address a humanitarian problem (food insecurity).

Last fall, Ms. Reinke taught a unit about how the different spheres of the Earth are connected and how something that affects one sphere also affects another. As part of the unit, the students learned about what happens when food enters landfills, which led to them to doing real-world research about the problem so they could devise real-world projects in hopes of impacting the issue.

The collection drive brought in 605 pounds of food, which is less than a previous BNS food drive. This was expected, however, because the point of the drive was to capture pantry items that people otherwise would have thrown away. ANNALEE HULL / BABCOCK RANCH TELEGRAPH

The collection drive brought in 605 pounds of food, which is less than a previous BNS food drive. This was expected, however, because the point of the drive was to capture pantry items that people otherwise would have thrown away. ANNALEE HULL / BABCOCK RANCH TELEGRAPH

“This was a hands-on project, not simply a writing assignment,” Ms. Reinke said. “We don’t do that here.”

The students began their research by tracking how much food and associated items, such as wrappers, they threw away in a day. Then they learned about the environmental impact of those things going to landfills as waste, such as the greenhouse gasses that rotting foods produce under landfill conditions, and how those gasses affect the environment.

The students decided to take their research a step further, contacting Publix and 31 Produce to inquire what these businesses do with food that becomes waste. Do they follow any sustainable practices with it, such as donating or composting it?

“Unsolicited, the students decided to research how big the problem is by reaching out to different local businesses,” Ms. Reinke said, adding that she was involved in those communications.

 

 

Once they had completed research to determine the extent of the problem, they brainstormed possible alternatives. Among the alternatives they identified were composting and regrowing plants from food scraps when possible, rather than tossing the scraps into the trash.

But they also identified that many people throw away usable food while at the same time other people are suffering from food insecurity and going hungry. So, what could they do with this information and possible solutions?

Some students decided to create educational websites to inform the public about the food waste problem and show solutions such as composting and regrowing food scraps.

Some decided to teach the information to younger students at BNS. And others decided to contact Community Cooperative, a local hunger nonprofit, to organize a food drive on the charity’s behalf.

 

 

This was not an ordinary food drive.

The kids dubbed it the “Food Waste Warrior

Project” and requested that people in the community donate only foods they already had in their pantries that might otherwise be tossed.

“They came to all of this on their own, with some small guidance, but they had to develop the purpose,” Ms. Reinke said. “And the goal wasn’t simply to reduce hunger. It was to reduce food entering the landfill.

“This definitely was a student-driven project by the sixth graders. It’s not like this was a high school project.”

The food drive organizers coordinated directly with Community Cooperative (again, with Ms. Reinke looped in), and they ran the drive April 4-8, culminating with the stu- dents hosting the Community Cooperative truck for a public collection drive at Babcock Ranch’s Food Truck Friday on April 8.

The drive collected 605 pounds of food, which is less than a previous BNS food drive. This was expected, however, because the point of the students’ project drive was to capture pantry items that people otherwise would have thrown away.

People reached into their pantries and pulled out items they were likely to throw away and instead donated them to the “Food Waste Warrior Project.” ANNALEE HULL / BABCOCK RANCH TELEGRAPH

People reached into their pantries and pulled out items they were likely to throw away and instead donated them to the “Food Waste Warrior Project.” ANNALEE HULL / BABCOCK RANCH TELEGRAPH

“The big takeaway is this wasn’t just a food drive,” Ms. Reinke said. “It was the sixth graders who came up with a way to help solve the problems of food waste and food insecurity at the same time.

“If if were a traditional food drive, we’d have had parents going to the store spending money on boxes of cereal and cans of Spaghettios to donate — which would have defeated the whole purpose of the students’ project.”

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