How to empower teenagers to make healthy and sustainable food choices? New FoodScienceClass tools for teachers

About 30% of all greenhouse gas emissions originate on our food system. Meanwhile, 30% of the produced food is wasted. But how to empower the young generation to face these issues? The EIT Food funded project FoodScienceClass decided to tackle this challenge by providing students with the skills and tools to make conscious food choices that lead to healthy, sustainable diets. This December, the project went one step ahead in its mission to empower students in their early teenage years by launching ready-to-use tools for teachers in English, Spanish, Polish, Dutch, Finnish and Hebrew. EIT Food is supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union.

Thinking critically to shape the food system

Throughout the 3-year project, students were encouraged to research and critically assess the challenges and opportunities of food production and nutrition together with teachers and food engineering researchers: "In our project, it was important to us that students are perceived and addressed as empowered citizens, capable of communicating about significant scientific issues that are relevant to them," said Dr. Keren Dalyot, FoodScienceClass Project Lead from Technion in Israel.

The participants from Israel, Poland, Finland and Belgium tackled real-life food science issues and explored their own biases and misconceptions about food. Science literacy and communication modules were at the heart of the project to explore effective ways to convey scientific findings, i.e. by using social media and other channels. As an international collaborative project, it was important for all partners to demonstrate to the teenagers both global aspects of the topic, such as the sustainability of the food system as a whole and the local and personal aspects, such as seasonal produce.

Ready-to-use materials for teachers to make students think and act

Now, FoodScienceClass publishes its materials and lesson plans to all teachers and educators. The ready-to-use materials are free of charge, available in English, Spanish, Polish, Dutch, Finnish, and Hebrew, and targeted to children from 9-14 years. They include lesson plans on food processing, food waste, data literacy, science communication and more.

Provided by European Food Information Council