This month, July, is all about Food Security.
Let’s talk about food! When was your first snack or meal? How long do you usually wait before you eat again? When you go out to eat, do you take home your leftovers? Didn’t clear your plate? Does the food go right into the organics bin or back in the fridge?
It’s delicious, nutritious (most times!) and… a lot of it goes to waste. In Canada, we waste about 6 million tonnes of solid food annually in Canada – that’s about the same weight as 1 million full-grown elephants! On the other hand, there are also communities where there isn’t enough food to go around. For some, it’s uncertain where and when they’ll have their next meal.
This month, we challenge you to reflect on your food consumption, consider others’ access to food and examine how we, as individuals and a community, can work towards food security for all.
How to participate this month:
As you learn and develop your digital skills, we challenge you to explore the topic of food security and its effects in communities and globally. You can choose your point of focus; a good place to start is to consider how food impacts your own life!
We like using “How might we…” statements to help encourage the creative problem solving process.
For example, how might we…
- Help communities who don’t have food security gain access to nutritious food?
- Raise awareness about the incredible amount of food waste happening in Canada and globally?
- Influence our communities to implement innovative methods to reduce food waste?
Here are some digital project ideas:
- Build a digital space where people who don’t have regular access to a sufficient amount of food can connect with those who have an oversupply of food
- Create a fun tracker or game to help better predict food expiration
- Create an interactive story or video to help inform others the need for food security
- Write a blog and record how much food you see wasted on a regular basis
It’s up to you what you where you want to take your digital project – we encourage you to be as creative and innovative as you like!
Share your digital projects with us!
Share photos, screenshots or videos of your digital projects you’ve started using the #clcCode4Change hashtag! We want to see what you end up creating. Remember that learning something new is a work-in-progress. We hope you continue to work on the project you’ve started with us – beyond the classroom!
Get inspired! Check out these helpful resources:
- Quick facts about food loss and waste
- How you can help end food waste by David Suzuki Foundation
- Food security and nutrition – what it looks like and its impact around the world
- Research on food security and conflict
