Introducing Food Sustainability in Formal Education: A Teaching-Learning Sequence Contextualized in the Garden for Secondary School Students

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of a garden-based teaching unit about “Food and Nutrition” on students’ knowledge and habits of sustainable healthy diets, and to compare it with that of a more traditional unit from a textbook. This communication is framed in a research project (EDUCYL2020-01 “Sembrando interés, cosechando competencia”, financed by the Consejería de Educación de la Junta de Castilla y León through the Dirección General de Innovación y Formación del Profesorado (ORDEN EDU/262/2020, de 9 de marzo, por la que se convoca la selección de proyectos de investigación educativa a desarrollar por equipos de profesores y equipos de inspectores que presten servicios educativos de la Comunidad de Castilla y León durante los cursos 2020/2122)) whose aim is to improve science education by approaching scientific topics of the official curriculum from a context-based strategy. The authors first designed a teaching-learning sequence, using an organic learning garden as a context, including real-life activities to promote reflection and debate among students. Such a sequence was implemented in a group of 40 students at the third course of Spanish compulsory secondary education, whose results were compared with those of a group of 15 students who followed the textbook. The impact was assessed by posing four open questions to students from the two groups, both at the beginning and the end of the instruction, whose answers were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Results show that implementing the sequence constituted an educational improvement with respect to traditional teaching, since students’ answers on the topic were overall more comprehensive and evidenced better preparation for making real-life decisions. Students from the experimental group became more aware of the environmental impacts of human nutrition, and of sustainable healthy diets. It was also indicated that the health and nutrition-centered approach that still predominates in education needs to be overcome, and a sustainable approach needs to be taken. This is a novel study that leads a new line of research devoted to addressing education about sustainable food, which arises from the demands of raising awareness among citizens toward changing diets within the transition toward sustainable food systems.

An organizational sustainability framework for Latin American Catholic schools in the La Salle network. A cross-national study using structural equations modeling

“…Internal consistency, assessed via composite reliability (>0.60), demonstrates solidity. Convergent validity, evaluated using AVE (>0.5), ensures that items within a construct measure the same concept (Erdfelder et al, 2015). Additionally, examining mean-variance extracted from each latent variable confirms convergent validity and assesses framework consistency (Fornell and Larcker, 1981).…”

“…, 2022). In short, to leap over a view considering only health and nutrition from a sustainable approach (Eugenio-Gozalbo et al. , 2022).…”

The IAFOR International Conference on Education – Hawaii 2024 Official Conference Proceedings

“…Out of 6,639 publications considered, nineteen were positively identified as peer-reviewed studies that quantitatively assessed the effectiveness of an educational interventions to encourage healthy eating through the lens of sustainability and climate change. Thirteen of these studies found that curricula highlighting the relationship between environmental sustainability and healthy, plant-based foods resulted in either increased knowledge about good nutrition, or increased consumption of plant-based foods (Antón-Peset et al, 2012;Bersamin et al, 2019;Brain et al, 2015;Cornelius et al, 2014;Costarelli et al, 2022;Eugenio-Gozalbo et al, 2022;Evans et al, 2012;Figueroa-Piña et al, 2021;Jones et al, 2012;Jones et al, 2017;Jones, 2020;Sellman & Bogner, 2013;Prescott et al, 2019). Six studies found no such positive relationship between the intervention and any predicted outcome.…”