Towards more sustainable eating at school through listening to kids and adolescents

Because the functioning of food systems is one of the biggest sources of environmental effects, environmental work concerning food is important. Food also directly affects well-being and health. A dietary change towards more plant-based eating is one of the most important food related climate and environmental actions required in Western countries, because animal-based production causes roughly half of the climate effects of the food system and the majority of land use effects that cause biodiversity loss. For example, in Finland, a change to a vegan or pescetarian diet could decrease diet-related climate effects by 30–40% without compromising nutrition (Saarinen et al. 2019). A climate-friendly diet would also have numerous health benefits compared to current dietary habits. 

In the ‘JUST-FOOD’ research project, we have studied the justness of the climate actions of the food system in connection with school meals, among other things. Free, warm, and diverse school meals have already been provided for decades in Finland. That is a rare thing in the world. In Finland, the scope of school meals includes almost a million students who eat one of their most important meals at school each school day. Because of this, eating at school has an immense significance both on nutritional equality and planetary well-being. The volumes of food prepared at schools are so great that even small changes made in the selection of ingredients there can have great effects. When eating at school, new generations are also introduced to new ingredients and learn new eating models. School meals can therefore teach sustainable habits that can continue throughout one's life. 

Because the customers who eat at schools are kids and adolescents, the changes made to eating at schools primarily affect them. Underage persons are easily left silent and aside in decision-making while the discussions are had between adults who are entitled to vote. Having kids and adolescents participate in developing school meals to be more sustainable and climate-wise simultaneously promotes participation, environmental education and building environmental citizenship, and more socially acceptable ways of climate action. In the JUST-FOOD project, we have experimented and researched the involving of kids and adolescents into developing school meals in several ways: through photography and small groups where solutions can be invented and considered, and also by having taste panels for tasting climate-friendly school meals and to discuss food. The views of students help us to understand why certain changes are supported or opposed and what is particularly important for them in school meals.

Project webpages: https://www.justfood.fi/fi-FI 

Teea Kortetmäki

Evolution in Action teaches about the origins of biodiversity through art and science

The ‘Evolution in Action’ project is developed together by ecologists and evolutionary biology researchers, artists and art educators. We combine science, art-based methods, action-based teaching, games and storytelling to ensure learning about biodiversity and evolutionary processes. The contents of the teaching material and workshops are suitable for supporting phenomenon-based teaching in pre-schools, comprehensive school and upper secondary school. All our materials are freely available. In addition, we organise workshops for schools, clubs and different science and environment education events for free. We have also organised short courses for teachers and educators about evolution and ecology and how to teach them with our materials. 

(Image: Michaela Casková.)

The main aim of the ‘Evolution in Action’ workshops is to promote the understanding of evolution, its time scales and how humans impact ecological and evolutionary processes. 

We want to increase knowledge about biological interactions within and among species and about how they shape organisms’ evolution and maintain diversity in nature. Our materials demonstrate that evolution is an active process where organisms (including humans) are living and evolving in interaction with each other, also at the present moment. Finally, our materials also shed light on how scientific information is produced and highlight ecological and evolutionary research done in Finland in addition to examples from international research.

So far, we have organised workshops on the following subjects: the interactions between plants and pollinators, the evolution of protective colouration in animals, symbiosis, communities and evolution, resource competition, and the time scales of evolution. In these workshops, we have used diverse methods of learning which reach different senses as well as different ways of knowing and learning. We have utilised storytelling, different methods of bodily learning, audio tapes, art-based methods (e.g., through painting and movement), games, small experiments, and sensory exploration of the environment.

Besides scientific content, we also offer the participants art-based and embodied working methods to enhance their relationship with the topics. Creative working offers tools to process one's own relationship with the environment, the emotions regarding it, and even difficult questions such as climate change, biodiversity loss and the impact of humans on the ecosystems. We hope that these working methods, which approach the topic through different ways of knowing, also encourage participants to work towards a more sustainable future and strengthen a respectful and empathic attitude towards other living beings. 

 Work group: Carita Lindstedt-Kareksela, Tiina Arjukka Hirvonen, Michaela Casková, Aigi Margus, Elli Liimatainen

www.evolutioninaction.fi

Voluntary conservation policies to support environmental stewardship in biocultural landscapes

The extent of the current global environmental crisis requires better understanding of how people relate to places and nature. This understanding would allow societies to identify transformative changes that could integrate sustainable food production and biodiversity conservation.

In many rural areas, people have been living in close relationship with nature for generations. Many of these “biocultural landscapes” are very important for conserving biodiversity and cultural heritage. Rural communities have played a key role in conserving nature through environmental stewardship, which involves caring for and responsibly managing the land through place-based practices and knowledge. However, many of these landscapes are currently under threat from land-use change, which means, for example, turning them into commercial forests or pastures. People are also increasingly leaving rural areas and abandoning traditional practices.

Image. Biocultural landscape in Uruguay.  (Image: Gonzalo Cortés-Capano.)

Since many of these biocultural landscapes across the world occur on private land, there is a need to develop culturally appropriate policies to engage landowners in voluntary conservation, fostering sustainable relations between people and nature in a changing world. How can we inform such policies to foster landowners’ environmental stewardship in biocultural landscapes? 

Due to its diverse biocultural landscapes, Uruguay represents an opportunity to address these issues as a case study area. In Uruguay, “old-growth” native grasslands have been used for traditional cattle ranching since the European colonization, leading to the development of different biocultural landscapes across the country. However, the area occupied by these grasslands has decreased by at least 23% between 1961 and 2011, and still continues to decrease due to the expansion of commercial forestry, crops and pastures. Since 96% of the land in the country is privately owned and the National System of Protected Areas covers only ~1% of the land, it is crucial to develop effective and equitable voluntary conservation policies at the local and national scale.

In this project, landowners were interviewed in one of the most important areas for nature conservation in Uruguay, where traditional cattle ranching has been conducted on native grasslands for generations. The aim in the study was to understand the landowners’ relationship with nature, their perceptions of the problems affecting the area, their main needs, and their visions of a desired future, in order to identify constraints and opportunities that would inform voluntary conservation policies.

The results revealed that landowners in the area had a close relation with nature and considered themselves and their neighbours as local environmental stewards. Traditional cattle ranching on native grasslands was a core element of their stewardship, underlying self-identity, social cohesion, and daily connections with nature. However, rural migration to urban areas was perceived to be one of the main threats to landowners’ livelihoods. These results suggested that in order to adequately support landowners’ stewardship, future policies in the area should offer a diverse set of incentives addressing local needs. For example, providing access to remote education programs might help bridge the urban-rural gap in education opportunities and mitigate rural exodus.

In the second stage of the project, a study at the national level in Uruguay was conducted to assess landowners’ preferences for different voluntary policies, including both monetary and non-monetary incentives to increase participation. Overall, landowners showed positive interest in joining voluntary programs. In line with the local scale results, landowners were more willing to engage in voluntary conservation if the policies were aligned with their values and needs. Non-monetary incentives, such as access to courses and trainings and technical support to improve food production practices, were preferred over monetary payments. This highlighted opportunities to develop context-specific policies that would foster environmental stewardship and long-term engagement.

Finally, results suggested that nature conservation goals in biocultural landscapes cannot be pursued in isolation from social and rural development goals. The magnitude of the global environmental crisis might generate the impression that local actions may be unable to address these challenges. However, engaging into local environmental actions may provide ways for all of us to develop meaningful experiences, to imagine alternative futures and to contribute to planetary well-being, promoting transformative changes towards sustainability.

Gonzalo Cortés-Capano

https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pan3.10122

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837721003495

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