Reflection: Visualization Tool

Food Security Challenge  By: Yessica Lopes (PR)

CHALLENGE AND SELECTION      With the commitment to improve educational knowledge, practices and attitudes regarding

education in nutrition and food security, our Symantec in Design

Thinking, Puerto Rico, we have developed various actions to strengthen the work of the educational

community in favor of integral education of all our students.

Within our school and family context there is a diversification of food and a change in the style

of non-nutritious food, so with the School Garden project we seek to ensure that our intermediate and

higher level students ,together with their families, can acquire a capacity to choose and produce healthy

and nutritious food through the implementation and management of home and school gardens. As

educators we are in a privileged position to encourage students to adopt practice and healthy habits

regardless of the ethnic group to which they belong to become participants and subjects committed to

their own health and examples of food production in their homes.

How could we motivate students to learn more about home gardens? For this we must consider

the Visualization tool can be use in each step of Design Thinking. It’s a visual thinking. Students can

visualize the importance of the creation of a home garden. Students must bring the idea to life. This

tool maintains a holistic leadership approach. They will identify why they will need a home garden and

the importance for their family.

APPLICATION

Through research they will analyze and identify possible causes why not everyone can get the

food they need. A social project plan will be developed where we can integrate the community, parents,

relatives, neighbors and businessmen adjacent to the school. With the aim of doing a social

entrepreneurship project. Where we harvest and offer our crops to the community, in addition to

integrating students outside of school hours with educational talks on how to make gardens in their

homes, among others, promoting good moments of leisure. We will promote curricular integration with

elementary level students where it is the students of intermediate and higher levels who present their

food security projects and the benefits of learning to cultivate. This will promote a holistic vision in our

students where they can understand that they can own their projects and crops, thus generating food

and a future income. By doing challenges like this, the students will be able to position their school

promoting that it be an innovative school where we highlight the conservation of the environment and

the Design Thinking methodology is used. It will be the students themselves who develop their

challenges and motivated to make their own hypotheses of how to obtain the desired product.

INSIGHT AND APPROACH

Upon completing the challenge, the students showed great appreciation for food sovereignty

and presented leaders on the subject, always guided by the methodology of design thinking. They held

talks and activities where they presented the importance of cultivating to maintain food to face any food

crisis. They presented high levels of empathy to know how different ethnic groups live and how difficult

it is for many to obtain food grown by themselves. It is proposed to use different tools to develop a work

committee where they can continue to carry the message of the importance of maintaining food security

including other schools. Organized plans for work and maintenance during non-school periods

(holidays), work plans for crop harvests in a staggered manner and agree on practices with experts to

continue improving their crops. Identify products that are easy to grow, guaranteeing fast and

motivational crops for younger students. Lastly, identify organizations that will provide budget support

to buy tools and materials necessary for planting and controlling weeds. It is intended to continue

innovating to seek to develop tools such as learning launch with the purpose of impacting at least three

schools per year in order to create environmental awareness and encourage more people with the

commitment of our challenge.

