Doing service learning work for Slow Food in collaboration with our classmates allowed us to expand and improve our teamwork skills and our knowledge about food justice issues. The silent tangram exercise that SLTA Amanda Miller implemented really helped to forge our solid Slow Food bond from the beginning and created community both inside and out of the classroom. Being in Slow Food has opened our eyes to the issues around systemic food system inequities global food production issues, and has inspired us to continue our learning about this discipline. One topic that especially stood out to us was the concept of food apartheid and food deserts. Slow Food explained how supermarket redlining and other systemic market inequalities has increased socio economic divides. This further promotes unsustainable food practices and overall societal wellbeing.
This inspired us to pursue the topic of food access on campus through the implementation of urban community food projects, like increasing awareness about garden beds, community fridges, and on-campus planter boxes. We were able to leverage useful skills in our Op-Ed design texts to promote awareness of Slow Food and its initiatives, and we gained a deeper understanding of transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary research, utilizing a breadth of primary sources and research databases. We feel much better equipped to tackle any issues that cross multiple disciplines with more confidence.
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