Education

An activity that invites participants to learn about the modern industrial food system, from production, processing, distribution, consumption to waste. Small groups explore what is involved in each part of the food system, who does the labor and who profits, and how we can make it more just and sustainable. Once participants have shared their findings, together they create a power map and organize a campaign for change. This lesson is paired with making kale smoothies, a nutritious way to practice decolonizing our diets.

The Black Panther Party’s 10 point program is a valuable tool for teaching liberation education. It not only gives students a deeper understanding of the civil rights movement, it further provides a container for participants to connect this history to their individual experience and discuss the most pressing issues in their community. Participants learn about the alliances built between the Black Panther Party and the United Farm Workers during their grape boycott and everyone gets to enjoy a fruit salad made with produce grown on local unionized organic farms.

This lesson provides participants with the opportunity to learn about the principles and ethics of permaculture design. Small groups will practice re-designing a home yard, a neighborhood, city, or region. This lesson draws connections between permaculture design and social justice movements by empowering participants with the opportunity to explore how to build a more sustainable and equitable living environment for all.

Companion planting is an ecological planting method that mimics natural processes and enhances biodiversity by using plant interactions to the gardeners’ advantage. Participants learn about these beneficial plant relationships and experiment with planting companions in the garden. They further gain an understanding of how diversity builds resiliency through learning about how the Third World Liberation Front organized at UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University to demand a relevant education for students of color and other communities that have historically been excluded from traditional curriculum.

This lesson introduces participants to the natural medicine available in their community and within themselves.

Participants spend time in the garden, harvesting and sharing knowledge about different plant remedies. They also learn more about the medical industrial complex and movements for healing justice.

Poetry is an important form of education and activism, and Gloria Anzaldua honors this tradition through her poem that draws attention to the experience of a farmworker struggling in the agricultural fields within the standard working conditions of the modern industrial food system. In this lesson, participants take part in a salad dressing competition using simple nutritious recipes and together they read Anzaldua’s poem in both English and Spanish. Participants are also introduced to the organizing work of the United Farm Workers and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

Though the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers are toxic and dangerous to both consumers, workers, and the environment, they continue to be used extensively in our modern industrial food system. This lesson provides participants with the hands-on opportunity to make their own natural fertilizers that maintain soil fertility and organic sprays for managing pests in the garden. As participants practice these methods of integrated pest management, they also learn about how different communities are organizing to protect our bodies, the environment, and workers across the food chain.

Mindfulness can help us find and maintain a sense of gratitude towards life and the interconnectedness of our ecosystem. This lesson introduces participants to the lessons of Thich Nhat Hahn as they read poems, find nature’s beauty within, and make simple, nutritious peanut butter balls to share. Participants also are introduced to the lessons of George Washington Carver using peanuts or other legumes as a cover crop to fix nitrogen into the garden’s soil.

We are sick of multinational corporations putting their profits before the health and well-being of people. By learning how to make our own nutritious and refreshing drink using glass jars and what we can harvest from the garden, participants take an active role in finding ways to boycott companies such as Coca Cola and spreading the healthy benefits and healing properties of plants in the garden.

Historical events that highlight people organizing and fighting for social justice within the food system can provide many lessons for activists working towards food justice today. This lesson engages participants in a game that brings to light different historical events throughout 1900 – 2014 that will inform and inspire our struggle today.