The title of this proposal is "Sustainability of the Field and Cultivation of Talents: Social Practice of Green Farming in Dakeng and Houli area and Food Safety and Education in Primary and Secondary Schools."
Echoing the "Health Promotion and Food Safety" of the Ministry of Education's University Social Responsibility Practice Project, this project takes "food and agriculture, food safety, and food education" as the main axis, and is carried out through "environmental-friendly farming", "food hygiene and safety", and "food education for elderly ". These practices are in line with the SDGs: ensuring good health and well-being (point 3), and giving quality education while promoting lifelong learning (point 4).
This proposal is divided into two major goals: curriculum refinement and field practice. We plan to give interdisciplinary courses in related departments of CTUST and develop professionalism and humanistic care. Aside from schools in Dakeng, we wish to expand our reach to Xinshe, Taiping, Houli and other surrounding areas. Our partners include high schools, junior high and elementary schools, as well as youth farmer organizations in Dakeng and Houli.
What we have accomplished is as follow:
1. Improving the students' professional ability:
Experts and scholars are invited to give lectures, regarding synergy to train students' communication, teamwork and problem-solving skills, as well as lectures on electronic picture book APP to enhance students' digital multi-media ability.
We conduct cross-field integration in micro-credits and interdisciplinary courses by service learning in Uncle Guo's Monkey Ecological Park in Dakeng. Thus "Food and Merchandise Magzine-Chapter of Coffee " was edited by the students from the department of international business, department of food science and department of children's education on marketing planning, food development, and introducing ecological resources in the park. Our goal is to promote the marketing of "Mishou Coffee". The service-learning in this semester is to edit "Food and Merchandise Magzine- Chapter of mushroom " for A-Liang mushroom farm in Xinshe.
2. Assisting primary and secondary schools to promote food and agriculture education:
Based on the achievement of core competencies, we assist Taiping Elementary School in Taiping District and Jyun Gong Elementary School in Beitun District to conduct food and agriculture education activities such as food safety, summer camp, picture bookmaking courses.
3. Exchanging food knowledge and experience with the elders:
We hold food-related activities at an elderly community center, also encourage elders to share their stories and experiences about the banquet tradition of Taiwan, while we introduce the way of LOHAS to them. We hope that underage students can learn from our treasured past as we include these materials gained from the senior citizens into textbooks and courses in school.
4. Helping local farmers expressing farming ideas through multimedia:
First of all, we created a Line@ account for "Houli Food and Merchandise Magazine" to help youth farmer organizations to advertise their crops and products. Besides, we will film documentaries on how young farmers teach the kids about farming techniques, agriculture and environmental protection. Also, we created a chapter on coffee in the "Food and Merchandise Magazine" to help farmers in the Dakeng area.
5. Designing the food and agriculture webpage "Eat easy and fun":
We are on the process to build the webpage of the e-commerce platform: " Eat easy and fun ", which contains information on agricultural product sales, farming experience tours, and food-related reports.
We attend local farmer's markets and the annual Dakeng Tangerine Festival held in Xindu Ecological Park. Students report the stories of stores located in Dakeng, Xinshe, and Taiping area, assisting in the sale of their goods and donate their earning to social welfare organizations.
Even though the proposal is affected by the pandemic, we still encourage the students to participate in the proposed activities and implement what they have learned in class. With our work, local elders can tell their own food stories through picture books that are written and illustrated by both the elders and students. We have also hold cooking classes to students in elementary school, hoping to help them develop the habit to eat healthy and safe from an early age.
In conclusion, our proposal has proven to ignite the passion for food safety in the target groups (students, young farmers and local elders), and can spark the community's interest for environmentally-friendly eating habits.