The document proposes designing a new learning environment that connects students in low-income urban areas with mentors and focuses on teaching healthy eating habits and community engagement through a social network. This network would involve students, teachers, parents, local businesses, organizations and others to provide tutoring, projects, and internships while addressing academic, health, and social challenges in the community. The goal is to improve graduation rates and health by adapting education to individual needs through community partnerships.

1. Designing a New Learning Environment
Community as Curriculum: a different kind of food network – a learning environment that is:
-- adaptable to various education settings, focus on what is learned, not just how it is learned
-- responsive to students with their remedial needs
-- healthier because it teaches students about good diet practices in a community context
-- inspiring to teachers and students so that education is more innovative and relevant
All Students
Business
Community
Design
Education
Food
Graduation
Health
from www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/health/nutrition/04well.html

2. Rationale: We need a new learning environment
that serves diverse student populations who
struggle in traditional settings and therefore have
remedial needs. This new learning environment
could exist in a variety of education settings that
connect different elements of a community while
also teaching students how to live healthier lives
and how to participate in the community.

3. it’s an Education Issue that’s tied to Class Issues: “Not surprisingly, most
schools in bad condition are in cities where at least 70% of students are below
the poverty line. Urban students are less likely to graduate than their suburban
counterparts. High school graduation rates are 15% lower in the nation’s urban
schools when compared with those located in the suburbs. In 2008, the
graduation rate among African-Americans was 61.5% compared to 81% for
whites. In 2008, 17 of the nation's 50 largest cities had high school graduation
rates lower than 50%… Children of poor families are up to six times more likely
to drop out than wealthy children.”
from www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-education-and-poverty-america

4. it’s a Health Issue that’s tied to Community Issues: …a study, published in The
Journal of the American Dietetic Association, comparing the prices of 370 foods
sold at supermarkets in the Seattle area. The study showed that “energy dense”
junk foods, which pack the most calories and fewest nutrients per gram, were far
less expensive than nutrient-rich, lower-calorie foods like fruits and vegetables.
The prices of the most healthful foods surged 19.5 percent over the two-year
study period, while the junk food prices dropped 1.8 percent. Obesity
researchers worry that these trends will push consumers toward less healthful
foods. …Gov. Jennifer Granholm of Michigan and her family took a weeklong
“food stamp challenge,” spending only $5.87 per day per person on food — the
Michigan food stamp allotment. She told reporters that she ended up buying a
lot of macaroni and cheese. Ms. Leonard and Mr. Greenslate, who chronicled
their dollar-a-day experience on their blog, onedollardietproject.wordpress.com,
say they are looking at other ways to explore how difficult it is for people with
limited income to eat a healthful diet.
from www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/health/nutrition/04well.html

5. “…[In California] we remove over 500,000 students from instruction each year through
suspensions and expulsions, many of them for minor acts of misbehavior, we are sadly
condemning a significant number of our youth to unproductive, problem-filled lives that
not only threaten their own well-being, but the well-being of the communities within
which they reside. …As Chief Justice of California “I am deeply concerned about the well-
known connection between school suspensions and our criminal justice system. One Texas
study shows that one suspension triples the likelihood of a juvenile justice contact within
that year. And that one suspension doubles the likelihood of repeating the grade. And
nationally, the studies show that suspensions have a racially disparate effect: African-
Americans, Latinos, American-Indians appear to have a far greater risk of suspension.”
from http://witnessla.com/category/zero-tolerance-and-school-discipline/
“The even greater challenge is nation-building at home at a time when funding for schools
is being slashed, about 7,000 high school students drop out every day, and there are long
waits to get into early-childhood-enrichment programs like Head Start. Literacy programs
can help break cycles of poverty and unleash America’s potential — and a single F-35
fighter could pay for more than four years of the Reading Is Fundamental program in the
entire United States.” from www.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/opinion/kristof-its-a-smart-
smart-smart-world.html

6. To address these issues, our new learning environment will connect
students in need with adult mentors who will tutor and morally support
them in a meaningful manner that strengthens communities. One of the
unique features of our learning environment will be that it connects
participants using more meaningful data and involves various constituents
in a more engaging manner using food.
Students, teachers, parents, restaurant owners, local farmers and their
markets, community gardeners, entrepreneurs, community and business
leaders, and organizations like the Boy and Girls Clubs will be the core
network in the new learning environment. Nursing homes and colleges
could also be incorporated.

7. System Function and Features: Participation in
this new learning environment will be
organized through a social network that uses
the best metrics of “online dating” and
Facebook to connect everyone involved. The
key is to organize and track data so that the
most important information is easily accessible
in the format most available to the user – text
messages will be one of the most used by
students at home but they will be able to
access institutional computers at school or at
tutoring locations like the Boys and Girls Club
or a local library.

8. The University of Phoenix offers a model for this: PhoenixConnect® which is an
academic social network that also offers interaction in real time. Features allow
students to: Create a support network that’s always available. Discover
interesting academic and professional conversations that can enrich your
classroom experience. Ask questions and get answers from the University’s
technical support, financial services and student services. Post status updates,
ask for study strategies or discuss current events. Develop an online user
profile to let others know your academic, professional and personal goals.
Create a personalized activity stream that aggregates updates from among your
connections and the communities you follow. Join or start a group based on
your interests, and follow conversations that are relevant to you. Keep up with
official University news and announcements via blogs written by faculty
members, students and staff. Control privacy settings — for the level of sharing
you prefer.
from www.phoenix.edu/students/how-it-works/innovative_education_technology/phoenix-connect.html

9. One element that we would add would have to do with healthy eating and would
allow students to record and discuss their daily diet decisions. Other people could
comment and students and other participants could earn merit badges based on
their decisions. Periodic competitions for the most badges/prestige would earn
free dinners that are donated by local restaurants that source their products locally.
from http://edudemic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/undergrad-tech.jpg

10. Target Audience and Learning Conditions: we would target students ages 12 – 16
who live in low income urban areas where there are both academic, health, and
community challenges. We would seek to create an ecosystem network of
partners that include students, teachers, parents, restaurant owners, local farmers
and their markets, community gardeners, entrepreneurs, community and business
leaders, organizations like the Boy and Girls Clubs, and corporations .
Tutoring and support for students would take place in a variety of locations
depending on the participants and the schedule they establish. Meetings could
take place in school, in the home, at the Boy and Girls Club, at a restaurant, at a
farmer’s market, or at a farm. Teachers could coordinate with mentor-tutors
online. The mentor-tutor might be a local business person or community gardener.
Projects that support lessons from school could be developed by network team
members who sign on to support a particular student or students. This may take
the form of designing a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure type of project or perhaps an
entrepreneurial project to get healthy food into the community or even an
internship.

11. Business or Implementation Model: This new learning environment and
curriculum would tap into existing frameworks like the Let's Move initiative
supported by First Lady Michelle Obama. Corporate social responsibility would
also be a part of funding and managing it as sponsorships who be available for
companies like Whole Foods and non-profit organizations like the Boys and Girls
Clubs of America.
To ensure that this learning environment is a physical presence in communities,
partnerships could also be established with corporations like Starbucks or 7-
Eleven that have almost ubiquitous existence.
The key would be to get students, parents, and schools to connect to people who
could support the remedial needs of students and to create partnerships with
local restaurants and food producers who are interest in education.