Tree of food waste

Creating a colourful tree display to record and celebrate food-waste reduction in the school.

In this activity, pupils monitor the amount of the school´s food waste and illustrate it with tree leaves.  This is your food statistic in the form of a tree. The tree changes every month, regarding the food waste behaviour at school. Pupils and teachers become even more connected to the project, wanting to make the tree as green as possible.

• pupils learn that food is precious and we don´t throw it away, 
• pupils visualise food waste and the food they save, they see the ratio between both quantities,
• pupils realise that we produce large amounts of food waste,
• children learn that trees are important  because they collect CO2, which is released from food waste,
• pupils develop healthy and responsible eating habits.

Putting leaves on a tree is an ongoing activity running over a whole year. You will need a few hours to make a tree and leaves.

Cardboard (or painting on the wall) for the tree, paper for the leaves.

Why not present your efforts to reduce food waste with a tree instead of a poster? A big tree in the school canteen will be seen from a distance and everyone could observe common work results. Trees have a very important role since they absorb CO2 which is released also from food waste and thus help reduce global warming. When we save food, we act like a tree

The activity is suitable for children from 7-9 years old. Your starting point is the average monthly food waste of the last year. Then you compare this number with the amount of food waste every month in the present year.
 

Your school kitchen will know the numbers.  If you have less food waste than in the average monthly amount of the last year, then you have saved the food compared to the previous year. This difference will be presented as green leaves on a tree since this is the progress, like a new growth.  The food waste of each month is presented with red leaves below the tree. The aim is to have as many green leaves and as little red leaves as possible.

Activity can have more variations.

• If you only observe the food waste in general and saved food in general, then you have only green and red leaves.

You can observe more groups, collect their data, present them with a new colour and get more colourful tree.

• You can, for example, observe how much food was saved or wasted by the kitchen and how much by the pupils. In this case, add the yellow leaves for the pupils, the kitchen will have green and red leaves. Now, on the tree, you will have green and yellow leaves, and below the tree red and yellow leaves. Now you can immediately see who saves more and who produces more food waste.

Trees from both variations look different!

An example of transforming a calculation into a leaves in September 

In this case, the kitchen didn´t save food in comparison with the average monthly amount of the last year, so they have only red leaves below the tree and no green leaves on the tree. Pupils have 150 kg of food waste and they have saved 150 kg, so this amount is transformed into yellow leaves, which we put on the tree, and food waste below the tree. As you can see, trees from both cases don´t look the same.

Additional activity: Fulfil your diary of food waste in school, find out how many leaves you have and put them on the tree! 

Society: children learn about themselves, their preferences and other people's. They develop good eating habits.  

Language: children will learn how to politely say no if they don´t want to eat anymore.

Environment/nature: children learn that food waste is bad for the environment, some people are starving, it is not good to throw food away.

Laura García-Herrero L., De Menna F., Vittuari M.,Food waste at school. The environmental and cost impact of a canteen meal, Waste Management, Volume 100, 2019. Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0956053X19306063

European Comission. JRC Publications Repository. Reducing consumer food waste: Recommendations for schools. Link: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC134747