School Based Living Labs as a contributor to local food systems change

On May 3rd, at 2:00 pm, Bent Mikkelsen will present a seminar entitled: “School Based Living Labs as a contributor to local food systems change”.

Short description of topic: Our current food consumption and production is unsustainable and create unhealthy eating patterns as well as adverse health impacts and as such there’ is a need for radical chances to the current version of the food system. Much of the discussion on food systems has resulted in an increased focus on local community actions. How can we understand urban and local food systems in terms of both consumption and production and how can they be changed? At the same time there is an increased focus on the need for engagement, education and empowerment of young people. In particular because much of this change to food environments and systems will affect the Generation Climate in a more direct way than is the case today. This presentation would report on the findings from organising such change and innovation processes within the context of schools. The empirical foundation comes from the two EU projects SESAM and Chorizo. It reports on the findings from 2 specific schools in greater Copenhagen area that has been working with Co-Creation with pupils supervised by mentors and teachers and will discuss what are the potentials for using such Living Labs as initiators of change in local communities. It will discuss how local retailers, knowledge providers and farmers alike can act and contribute to change in such labs. In particular it will percent and discuss the opportunities of assessing food environments in local areas using pupils as Co Creators.

Short Bio: Bent Egberg Mikkelsen is a professor urban food systems transformation at Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management at University of Copenhagen. He is a M.Sc. of Food Science from the Royal Agricultural University, Copenhagen and a PhD in Social Science, from Roskilde University. His research is on public food with emphasis on school food. He has developed the learning and lab concepts of Gastronarium, the Alimentarium, the Food’n Science, the Young Minds Food Lab, the Next Generation Food Makers Space and the Young Food Waste Fighters Club. All are targeted developing 21st century skill-based didactics for young people at school and based on STEM and digital principles. And all with challenges from the food and bioeconomy as cases. Bent is the PI of the SELEA21 and SESAM programs and most recently the SESAM21 pogram that focuses on how foodsystems thinking can be integrated in the STEM, science and digital learning at school.