• Five Presentations at National Science Teachers Association Area Conference, Detroit, MI (10/15/07)

As part of the Launching of the Rethinking School Lunch/LiFE Network the Teachers College Center for Food & Environment and the Center for Ecoliteracy co-presented five sessions at the National Science Teachers Association Area Conference in Detroit, MI on October 17-19, 2007. The sessions were:

• Keeping the Cardiovascular System Pumping featured lessons from the Choice, Control, & Change module of the LiFE curriculum series. With heart disease being the number one killer in the United States, participants learned creative ways to engage students in understanding the science behind healthy hearts.

• Connecting Natural and Human Systems Through Food Literacy gave an overview of the Rethinking School Lunch/LiFE network and gave strategies the network uses to help students draw connections between the natural and designed world.

• QuESTA—Making Science Process Successful led participants through how an exploration of how grape juice is made. In the process, introduced teachers to how the QuESTA (Questioning, Experimenting, Searching, Theorizing, and Applying to Life) learning cycle in LiFE makes science process real and successful.

• Biting, Stepping and Hunting featured a lesson of how students can collect and use data about their eaing, exercising and the food available in their communities to improve their quality of life.

• Cafeteria as Lab: Waste Analysis Studies grappled with the question, "Have you noticed the garbage created in the cafeteria?" Turn this into an opportunity to collect and analyze data and make action plans for change.

   

• Growing Food module of the LiFE Curriculum Series now available - order through NGA

The Growing Food module of the LiFE Curriculum Series, which was formally named Food Production, has been fully revised, updated and illustrated. The illustrations feature vegetable and herb plants and much more. You can purchase LiFE at the National Gardening Association. If your school or school district in interested in implementing Growing Food and would like to inquire about getting professional development support from the LiFE team, please email Pam Koch at lifeattc@columbia.edu.

• Choice, Control, & Change outcome evaluation in 10 New York City Schools, 06-07 (5/14/07)

Choice, Control, & Change (C3) is the module in the LiFE curriculum series that teaches middle school students to analyze and understand our current food and activity environment, how this environment is impacting our health, and how to navigate through the environment, essentially "beat” the environment through using scientific evidence to make healthful food and activity choices. During the 2006-07 school year the impact C3 has on students’ was evaluated with five New York City middle schools and five comparison middle schools where students receive the standard science curriculum. Students were evaluated on their conceptual understandings, attitudes, values, self-efficacy, reported food and activity behaviors, and perceptions of science through pre- and post-assessment surveys. Three of the comparison schools received C3 after finishing their post-assessments. In total 35 classes and 770 students received the C3 curriculum during this school year.

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• Farm to Table & Beyond in 6 New York City Schools, 06-07 (5/14/07)

Through funding from a Food Stamp Nutrition Education (FSNE) grant awarded to Food Change, LiFE is being implemented under the umbrella of the School Food Plus Initiative. Some of these schools also have CookshopTM in grades K-2 with our long-term model being to have more and more schools that have SchoolFood Plus in the Cafeteria, CookshopTM in the lower grades and LiFE in the upper grades for comprehensive, positive food experiences woven seamlessly through students’ everyday lives in the classroom and cafeteria. Fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students who receive the Farm to Table & Beyond module study food systems as part of their science education. They develop conceptual understanding about, analyze, and critique the human-designed and highly technological system that gets food from farm to table. They learn that this journey can be short and simple with few steps when we eat whole foods from local farms, and long and multi-stepped when we eat highly processed foods with ingredients grown all over the world. We hope they will thoughtfully reflect upon how our food system works and how our food choices impact our personal health and the health of the natural environment. As they develop their own theories to understand the food system and its personal and environmental impacts, students will be able to apply what their new knowledge and skills whenever they are making food choices. During an intense food system discussion in a LiFE lesson, a 6th grade girl so eloquently stated, “If people on the street knew half of what we now know, they would make different choices!"

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• LiFE works with MS 448 on its 8th grade collaborative project on the School Cafeteria (5/14/07)

MS 448 is the Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies. The 8th grade collaborative project this year is a cafeteria study. The eight graders are divided into groups of about 12 with a teacher leading each group. The project began with each group visiting two cafeterias ranging from other schools to corporate sites. Then they students received several lessons from the LiFE modules Farm to Table & Beyond and Choice, Control, & Change to increase their food and food systems knowledge as they went into the project. Each group then went into depth on a specific topic ranging from recipe development to composting leftover foods, and from cafeteria aesthetics to improved nutritional value of the meals.

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• Rethinking Food, Health and the Environment Launched (5/14/07)

Through a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation awarded to the Center for Ecoliteracy and the Teachers College Center for Food & Environment to promote science teaching, improve the health prospects of children vulnerable to diet-related disease, and support comprehensive reform in school food and curriculum integration. The Center for Ecoliteracy, located in Berkeley, California, is a public foundation dedicated to education for sustainable living. A decade of working with schools on issues of food and curriculum culminated in its development of Rethinking School Lunch (RSL), a planning framework for changing the food in schools and connecting formal classroom studies with hands-on experiences in school gardens, kitchen classrooms, and cafeterias. This framework is also captured in a Visual Guide designed to create awareness and interest for schools to reform school food and support food system related curriculum in the classroom. Rethinking Food, Health and the Environment will support a network of schools beginning in New York, California, and Illinois. It will also develop and implement professional development workshops that will support schools in adopting Rethinking School Lunch and LiFE.

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• Five Presentations at National Science Teachers Association Conference, 03/07 (5/14/07)

As part of the Launching of the Rethinking School Lunch/LiFE Network the Teachers College Center for Food & Environment and the Center for Ecoliteracy co-presented five sessions at the National Science Teachers Association Conference in St. Louis, Missouri on
March 29-April 1, 1007. The sessions were:

• Keeping the Cardiovascular System Pumping that featured lessons from the Choice, Control, & Change module of the LiFE curriculum series. With heart disease being the number one killer in the United States, participants learned creative ways to engage students in understanding the science behind healthy hearts.
• Connecting Natural and Human Systems Through Food Literacy gave an overview of the Rethinking School Lunch/LiFE network and gave strategies the network uses to help students draw connections between the natural and designed world. The session also featured research on the learning progressions student use to understand food systems as they take part in the Growing Food and Farm to Table & Beyond modules of the LiFE curriculum series.
• QuESTA—Making Science Process Successful led participants through how an exploration of how grape juice is made. In the process, introduced teachers to how the QuESTA (Questioning, Experimenting, Searching, Theorizing, and Applying to Life) learning cycle in LiFE makes science process real and successful.
• Bringing Up Bookworms: Linking Children's Literature and Plant Science featured the Chicago Botanical Garden and activities they use during teacher workshops on children's literature as a link to plant-based science. This session also included the review of a plant part salad lesson in the Growing Food module of LiFE.
• Making Visual Literacy Part of Science Literacy explored ways to use science illustration to help students understand key aspects of photosynthesis.

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• Schools, Food and Gardening: Cultivating a Healthy Future Conference, 04/07 (5/14/07)

The Baum Forum http://www.baumforum.org/ and the Teachers College Columbia University Program in Nutrition co-sponsored the Schools, Food, and Gardening: Cultivating a Healthy Future Conference on April 21, 2007. The conference featured plenary sessions, workshops, and a resource fair and was attended by over 400 participants. The energy for and enthusiasm about school, food, and gardening issues was incredible and many connections among the various New York City programs were made. Look for future collaborations between the Baum Forum and Teachers College.

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• Professor Isobel Contento and LiFE on the Teachers College Website (4/25/07)

Read about the release of Isobel Contento’s (Principal Investigator for the Center for Food & Environment) book, Nutrition Education: Linking Research, Theory and Practice, Thought for Food on the Teachers College website.

Read about Linking Food and the Environment on the Teachers College website.

Read about the work of Professor Isobel Contento on the Teachers College website.

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• Three presentations at the National Science Teacher's Association (NSTA) conference in Boston, MA (3/27/08 - 3/29/08)