Erasing Food Waste” is a collaboration between Chowberry USA, JASON Learning and JASON’s partner school districts across the United States of America,
The program is designed to build awareness of the problem of food waste, challenge students to develop collaborative solutions that address local food waste issues, and empower them to act on those solutions to affect real and sustainable change in their communities. Our target audience is secondary school students (grades 6-12) in both formal (school classroom) and informal (after-school) learning environments. Through seven current and highly active JASON partner school districts in the Greater Houston area the program will be accessible to over 327,000 youth in our target age range. Target communities are a mix of urban, suburban, and rural, and represent predominantly non-white (84%) and economically disadvantaged (63%) demographics.
The primary vehicle for Erasing Food Waste is JASON’s “Community Challenge” format in which students engage with real-world problems which require STEM knowledge and skills, as well as an entrepreneurial approach, to solve. Students will build understanding and awareness of the problem of food waste and food insecurity in formal and informal classroom settings, then will form teams to design and implement solutions for their community.
Through the partnership with the Chowberry Foundation, students will have access to powerful real-time food tracking technology that students may use to form the basis for, or add additional capabilities to, their designs for food waste solutions. At local and regional events, student teams will participate in a “pitch competition” and vie for mini-grant funding to scale and sustain their local food waste solutions. Teachers and after-school facilitators will receive training to ensure program awareness, usage, and effective implementation.
Design Challenge and Challenge Mentor
As part of the Erase food Waste program, a design challenge was given within the STEM curriculum to design sliding scales on pricing that can reduce food waste. Founder of Chowberry Foundation – Oscar Ekponimo participated as a mentor and role model lending his experience in the use of technology to address food waste. The Design challenge involved schools in over 9 school districts across America.
In the U.S., 50% of all produce gets thrown in the trash. Much of this food is perfectly acceptable: it tastes great and is safe to eat. But because it is close to its expiration date, is shaped abnormally, or just doesn’t look pretty, it gets thrown out. There are lots of opportunities for entrepreneurs to come up with creative ideas to reduce waste and have a positive impact on society. One way is through sliding price scales.
A sliding price scale charges customers different amounts for the same product depending on things like the appearance or expiration date.
The challenge is to design a food-related business that uses a sliding price scale to reduce food waste.
