This infographic was prepared by Nishnawbe Aski Nation with the support of the Northern Food Systems Community Project Coordinator in partnership with Eko Nomos and the Community Engaged Scholarship Institute. It explores a spectrum of First Nations' food self-determination activities, including:
There is growing evidence that significant numbers of university students in Canada experience food insecurity, potentially undermining the health, well-being and educational success of students. The University of Guelph has joined a handful of other Canadian universities in responding to this issue. CESI, Meal Exchange, Universities Fighting World Hunger and graduate students working with Dr.
This experiential First Year Seminar course challenged students to think beyond volunteering and charity as the means to have a positive impact in the community. Over the course of one semester, interdisciplinary teams of students addressed specific challenges identified by community-partners using tools and techniques from lean business models and social enterprise startups.
As the central focus of the class, students planned for, developed, and disseminated Knowledge Translation (KT) products to community partners. Along with the course instructor, students collectively monitored their progress over the semester and ultimately produced three projects each: an infographic, a taped media interview, and a newspaper/blog posting. Classes were a mix of guest lectures, workshop opportunities, instructor-led discussions and in-class assignments about evidence-based practice and knowledge translation.
Throughout this course, students worked with a community partner to analyze and approach broad social issues from a multidisciplinary perspective. A unique aspect of the course was that there were no clear rubrics or mark breakdowns established. Students were informed about bare minimum requirements, but were encouraged to think beyond how to perform to meet expectations, and engaged in conversations with the instructors regarding appropriate learning goals and outcomes based on their discipline and year-level.
As a capstone course for several streams of geography students, students worked in small groups to contact community partners and organize projects that aligned with their interests and the course learning objectives. The core of the course was a group project; in small teams, students identified a problem, designed a solution, gathered the necessary data, implemented the solution, and presented their results.
As a major component of the course (50%), the class partnered with Victim Services Wellington to conduct a literature review and ultimately create a safety assessment checklist that could be used by the community partner. Throughout the term, students worked in collaborative learning teams (3-5 people per group) to complete different elements of the project, before the class congregated to collaboratively construct the final product.
This project is a follow-up to the first phase of a program evaluation conducted in collaboration with Focus on Nature in 2018. The aim of this second phase of the program evaluation was to identify what volunteers gained out of their involvement with Focus on Nature, why they continued to be involved, and why they might discontinue their volunteering commitment.