< PreviousSHOCKING ! AT LEAST 85% OF WHAT WE DISCUSSED AND TAUGHT IN THIS COURSE ISN’T REPRESENTED IN EXAMS OR IN THE CURRENT UK SCHOOL CURRICULUM AT ALLclass which then ultimately leads us to argue that the way we produce food today is no longer future fit and that we must find new, better methods to produce it. Fortunately for all of us though we have seen many breakthroughs, many of which are sci-fi-like in nature. These not only give us hope for the future but also eliminate many of the problems associated with current food production including animal welfare, deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, epidemics, pollution, water consumption, and others, while at the same time dramatically improving food accessibility, affordability, quality, and yields. The result of which means that our children should be able to look forwards to a brighter future free from food conflict and stress. LESSON OBSERVATIONS You can find the course and lesson plans we used for this course later on in this codex. These observations, from the first run of this course, include observations from both myself and the teaching staff involved. In this case these lessons were taken by myself alongside Andrew R. the schools Year 6 science teacher who had no prior experience of this topic or lesson format. LESSON 1 How Food is Produced and its Impact 1. Breaking Homework Rules . The decision to allow students to do the lessons’ homework assignment in collaborative groups of their choosing with the people of their choosing, including parents, was a good one because it helped them practice and fine tune a wide range of future necessary THE FUTURE OF FOOD COURSE . FIRST RUN . I T’S THE last term of the academic year, during a very busy period for the school that includes everything from exams and mocks to end of term plays, and this course was run with Year 6 students with an average age of 11. Aligned to the United Nations Sustainability Development Goal (SDG) 2, Zero Hunger, this is a three week course with three one hour lessons and a small amount of after school homework. We chose this course as our first because everyone consumes food and is familiar with it, as well as because it’s crucial to human life and wellness. Furthermore, in addition to growing food inflation and food insecurity, today over 1 Billion people still suffer from hunger and starvation on a daily basis which is no thanks in part due to the fact that currently 47% of all global agricultural yields - both animals and crops - are being wiped out by disease and pests as well as by extreme weather and water scarcity events. And all of these challenges are against the backdrop of a growing global population and middle 231311institute.comLESSON 1 WHICH STATEMENTS ARE TRUE ? ALL . NONE . SOME ? 1. WE DON’T NEED ANIMALS TO MAKE MEAT 2. WE DON’T NEED FIELDS TO GROW CROPS 3. WE CAN MAKE COFFEE WITHOUT THE PLANT 4. WE CAN MAKE FOOD FROM AIR 5. WE CAN PRINT FOOD IN SPACE ANSWER : ALL OF THEMsoft skills including collaboration, leadership, and organisation. It also gave them skills that are in sync with those in the real world where we generally don’t work in isolation, while this is counter to the current educational establishments mantra of independent learning and evaluation it is a vital skill. 2. Broad Knowledge . During the lesson workshop discussing how food is produced today the children discussed many more ways than we anticipated, including foraging and hunting, so we increased the time allowed for this activity. 3. Complete Attention . Throughout the one hour class we had their full attention about 97% of the time which equated to very high engagement, and that is probably made even better a statistic given the fact I’m not a teacher with the teachers authority. 4. General Knowledge . Having knowledge of other topics associated with this lesson such as cell reproduction, climate change, sustainability, and so on, proved to be important - this “associated knowledge” could be one of the main limiting factors when it comes to trying to roll these kinds of lessons out to younger children. That said though if children didn’t have this knowledge it wouldn’t be too big an issue. 5. Hungry for Knowledge . The children were hungry for futures knowledge and in many cases had already gotten a lot of information about this and other topics, such as growing food on Mars and in space, via their informal education networks such as friends and online content. This was notable because none of them knew we were running this course which shows there is already an existing level of interest in this topic and in information not contained within the traditional UK curriculum. 6. Like Ducks to Water . Despite being told many times by people that you can’t teach children about complex futures we consistently found that children grasped the concepts better and faster than the vast majority of adults I’ve encountered. 7. Permission to Think . Some of the children asked for permission to think out side of the box when we were discussing future food production methods which likely says something about today’s culture. 8. Question Overload . The children almost overloaded us with questions, most of which were intelligent and showed a high degree of fore thought and lateral thinking, the result of which Notes: 233311institute.commeant we will be adding dedicated Q&A time into lesson plans. 9. Right Fit . While we could teach this lesson to younger students in years 4 and 5 students Year 6 seems to be a good “minimum fit.” 10. Supportive Parents . The children’s parents, who we also needed to be “on board” with the initiative were not only supportive but they all saw the value with many of them turning into champions and sponsors of the program. 11. Teach the Teacher . The class teacher, Andrew R., grasped the lesson content fast which alleviated one of our main concerns about the implications of having to “teach the teacher.” LESSON 2 The Future of Food Production At the end of Lesson 1 the children were set the homework task of writing a short story on answering the question: “How will food be produced in 2030?” The question was intentionally broad in order to give the children the opportunity to explore the subject in greater depth at their leisure. As expected the vast majority of their stories demonstrated linear thinking which can be summarised as “more of the same (of today’s traditional thinking - genetic engineering, more cattle and crops, and so on).” Two students though did write about vertical farms and cellular agriculture, two new food production methods. However, even though their stories were high level and they had questions it was clear that they grasped the basic concepts even if they didn’t understand them with any particular clarity. Our first hand learnings from running Lesson 2 included: 1. Can’t Wait . As we neared the end of the lesson the most dominant question was: “Why do we have to wait until the next lesson!?” which in this context meant they were eager to continue. Obviously it was an encouraging sign, and after the lesson a number of students came up to myself and the teacher to say the course was by far and away their favourite of all their classes. 2. Confused about Animals . It was interesting to see that as we talk about “Meat without the animal” and “Dairy without the animal” a significant number of the children were confused about what Notes: 234311institute.comwe would do with all the livestock, in fact this became a minor sticking point ... 3. Guessing is not a Strategy . When asked a set of five questions about the future of food production, shown on the adjacent page, just under 20% of the children thought all the statements were true. However, we had good reason to think a few were guessing. 4. Intelligent Questions . While there were tons of questions - edging close to a hundred - as the children’s knowledge grew their questions became more informed and intelligent including questions about food cost, quality, safety, and taste, as well as its nutritional value, impact on jobs, water consumption, the future of livestock, and more. In fact many of the questions were as good as or better than those asked by adults. 5. Limit the Tech . Where possible minimise the use of technology, such as laptops, in the classroom because between WiFi issues and software updates we were at risk of loosing ten minutes of the lesson. Use technology only when necessary. 6. Question Overload . As we stepped through the various new food production methods including 3D Printed foods, Cellular Agriculture, food from air, and vertical farming, the volume of questions was non stop. There was also a huge amount of group chatter and excitement - so much so that at one point I thought we would have tio abandon the lesson and turn it into one long Q&A session instead. Frankly, it was fascinating to see, but it also means that delivering these lessons exclusively online might limit their impact. 7. Shallow Knowledge . When it came to listing today’s common food production methods in general all the students could list them as well as their inputs and outputs. Against the backdrop of a growing global population, climate change, and their environmental impacts they all classified them as unsustainable which was interesting to see. However, when it came to conversations about ingredients - more “obscure” food staples such as Palm Oil, Soy, and Whey - they were less sure about how these were produced and when we discussed Oil Palm monocultures none of the children thought about biodiversity loss as a consequence. In fact they thought the impact of the farming method was “neutral” because while one rainforest tree is felled in Borneo, for example, it’s replaced by an Oil Palm. This was also interesting to see. Notes: 235311institute.comLESSON 3 The Deep Future of Food, and Implications This lesson focused on the opportunities that the new food production methods discussed in Lesson 2 give us to transform old foods and create new ones. It also focused on the cultural, ethical, and social consequences of these new food production methods including how incumbent companies who are disrupted by them respond in the real world, using real examples, and their impact on jobs. Given the seriousness of the topics and the age of the class I always believed that this lesson would be one of the most challenging in the course especially given the fact that many of the issues we covered aren’t included anywhere in today’s traditional school curriculum - which is why I included them in the first place. However, while I was right to a degree and cracks in the students general knowledge definitely showed, that didn’t stop them coming up with some surprising out the box thinking. These are our first hand learnings from running Lesson 3: 1. Fighting Competitive FUD . When it came to discussing how to counter the behaviour and narratives that incumbent companies put out when faced with new disruptive market entrants that they are trying to put out of business or slow down, by trying to turn consumer opinion, marketing, and regulations and law against them, as expected there was a lot of silence. In part this was because students aren’t generally taught about the “realities” of business in the real world whether it’s about competition, intellectual property, marketing, regulation, sales, or value propositions. However, it’d be also due to the fact that in order to counter the incumbents objections and win over customers the children needed to have a deeper understanding about not just the new startups businesses, products, and value propositions, but also the incumbents. My feeling is that this is where a dedicated entrepreneurship course would be beneficial. That said though with prompting the children did start to get their heads around how to counter many of the incumbents arguments and began using arguments about regulation, sustainability, as well as product innovation to their advantage. Given the fact that this was an in at the deep end assignment the evolution in their thinking Notes: 236311institute.comLESSON 3 LET’S TALK PANDA BURGERS •RIGHT? •WRONG? •CULTURALLY INSENSITIVE?was impressive and would put many adults to shame. 2. Getting Out the Box . There was one student was reticent to present his idea and needed prompting to vocalise it because he thought it was impossible, namely the ability to create tasty edible plates and cutlery, the former of which could be wrapped around different foods like a Tortilla which was an interesting idea. Meanwhile, another student showed some significant out the box thinking and suggested developing foods with medicines in them, something that’s ironically already been done and approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, but that we hadn’t discussed. Both of these were excellent examples of lateral thinking. 3. New World Old Social Biases . When we discussed the ethics of Panda Burgers - Right, Wrong, or Culturally Insensitive - it was interesting to see that almost all the children thought they were wrong which then led us to have a conversation about the origins of food, cultural food bias and societal norms, and led us to discuss some of the foods that other cultures eat that we in the UK might find odd such those cultures who eat dog, frog, horse, and snake meats, for example. 4. Radical Lateral Thinking . It was quite staggering to see the children apply radical lateral thinking and start asking questions about what would happen if we used Cellular Agriculture to create Human Burgers - something that has already been done - then using their own initiative debate whether that was cannibalism, something that I’m sure parents will love discussing when the students get home ... 5. Surprising Creativity . When it came to thinking up new food products that could be created using the new food production methods the children had no shortage of ideas. However, as expected many of those stayed in the safe zone with the children principally focusing on combining existing foods, flavours, and food formats together. Later on though they did start including textures in their ideas, and it was also encouraging to see them evolve their thinking to include the possible health benefits of the foods they created. 6. Work to be Done . When we discussed what happens to those people who loose their jobs because of the adoption of some of these new disruptive technologies, such as automated vertical farms, there was a wide mix of answers ranging from retraining them, hiring them, and in one case letting them sort things out for themselves. My feeling is Notes: 238311institute.comMYTH “YOU CAN’T TEACH CHILDREN ABOUT COMPLEX FUTURES . “ OBSERVATION THEY PICK IT UP FASTER AND BETTER THAN ADULTSNext >