How it works

The students are the citizen scientists in this project. They will assess the food system and food culture within their own school in order to find out where improvements can be made to make their school food system more sustainable and healthier. The research cycle steps are as below:

Topic contextualization

The students will be provided with background information in order to have a wide discussion on the components of sustainable and healthy school food systems, the Whole School Food Approach and the use of citizen science in education.

Data collection (reviewing and monitoring of the school food system)

The students will use the questionnaires provided in the RE-TASTY toolkit to collect data from the different school stakeholders (e.g., teachers, students, parents, school canteen personnel). The questionnaires can be used as they are or they can be co-created with the citizen scientists so that they are adjusted to their school context and characteristics.

Data analysis and interpretation

The students will look for themes in their data, come to some main conclusions and prepare a summary of their conclusions for the other school stakeholders.

Action and reflection

Based on the conclusions, the students will decide on an action to initiate for the school.

During implementation, the students are expected to spend six to eight hours on the various research activities/training plus some extra hours for the implementation of the action (depending on the time that the students and the staff have available). The data collection (interviews) as well as the implementation of the action will be carried out in their own time.

This project can be offered in English or in Dutch. It can also be implemented and adjusted to the needs of each school. Schools are free to choose to implement it either within the curriculum (e.g., within a school subject) or as an extracurricular activity or through the Green Team of the school.

The participation for the schools is free of charge and no preparation is needed on behalf of the teachers.

The project can be carried out solely for the benefit of the school. However, as RE-TASTY is a citizen science project, we hope that the collected data will be also shared with us. The goal is to compile anonymized data from different schools to produce scientific knowledge and impact policy on school food systems. Citizen scientists will be acknowledged for their contribution. In the Table below, one can see how these two approaches differ in practice.

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