An Informational Workshop and a List Longer than Gandalf's Beard

Posted by Zoe Kwasnicki on

Industrial farming is an enormous issue to tackle - I knew that when I first chose it. I began with my passion post, diving deep into the issue and just generally trying to come to terms with what it was. From there I began my original research in which I interviewed three people of different agricultural and environmental organizations to widen my overall worldview as nothing is one-sided. Then it was time for my agent of change. I was a little lost at first so I spent the first week or so of my agent of change just brainstorming different ideas. Below are some notes I was taking while brainstorming.
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I isolated industrial farming into 3 general issues - abuse of materials and animals in production, lack of protective and restricting legislature, and lack of consumer knowledge. As a high school freshman, I doubted that I would be able to suddenly stop farm animal abuse or pesticide use or write federal legislature, so I decided to tackle the issue of consumer knowledge.
When I mean consumer knowledge, I mean the fact that in order to understand basic information about whether or not your favorite brand uses GMOs or not, you have to do at least an hour worth of research. There should be more transparency in our food labels, but until we reach that point, I believed the best thing I could do to help was to educate students about the issues in our food production process and what the labels on their food actually mean.

There were a few things I wanted to do in order to teach people about consumer knowledge.

I wanted to hold some kind of informational workshop in which I could inform people of the issues, but I also wanted to encourage students, such as myself, to eat more responsibly and consciously and to care and understand what they were consuming. I wanted to do this by doing a week’s worth of free, pre-assembled salads as a lunch option for students while also asking them to sign a petition for fresh produce to send to the School District of Philadelphia. My goal was to push for a partnership between local farmers and gardens and the School District in order to encourage healthier diets for all students, especially as some families cannot afford wholesome produce and this would be an easy way to deplete food deserts across the city. For those who do not know, a food desert is “an urban area in which it is difficult to buy affordable or good-quality fresh food.” They are an extremely prevalent issue in America that is often overlooked and just by providing the students of these areas with access to fresh produce can be beneficial to the entire community.

However, there were a few issues with this plan:


1. I only had a few weeks to pull everything together.

2. Getting in contact with interested farmers and procuring the produce.

3. Making the salads and working with the cafeteria workers to pull it off.

4. Writing the petition.

5. Spreading the word and actually getting students engaged in the idea.


With what was turning out to be a year-long plan, I decided to hold off on this plan for now and instead stick to the idea of an informational workshop.


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For the workshop, I had a few goals in mind.

I needed to:


1. Spread the word to students and the public alike.

2. Secure a space.

3. Plan and practice the workshop.


The original checklist seemed simple and, dare I say, easy at first, however the project continued to evolve and after a work or so of planning, this is what I ended up with as my overall checklist:


  1. Design flyer

  2. Make flyer

  3. Print flyer

  4. Post flyers

  5. Secure a space, a projector, and a teacher chaperone for the presentation.

  6. Actually write the script

  7. Make slides for the presentation.

  8. Practice the presentation.

  9. Do the presentation.


I also wanted to hand out pamphlets with information on them for people to post on their fridges so they could look at it before going grocery shopping, but in the end the checklist had grown longer than Gandalf’s beard and I was unable to pull it all off.  However what I did have planned as my presentation I believe, if presented correctly, would be effective at helping people understand the issues facing us today which is why I have linked both my script and my presentation in this post as well posting the flyer I made for the workshop below.


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And although I was unable to do everything I wanted to, I do hope that, sometime in my high school career, I will be able to complete both the informational workshop and the week of free, fresh produce in order to inform as many people as I can about the demon behind their dinner.

If you are a politically active person who would like to create change or at least know about what you’re eating, I suggest supporting organizations such as the PASA, the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture, the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency (they need all the help they can get), and animal welfare aware processing companies such as Rising Star Meat Co. I would also like to thank John Butler from the EPA, Aaron de Long from the PASA, and Helen Kollar-Mcarthur from Rising Star. All three of them were very cooperative and informative in their interviews and I could not have done what I was able to do without them.

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Here is the link to my annotated bibliography: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VIiE6I16cLuFvx1XoQyid2KVUAP_JbK4xXDyd6ErbRc/edit?usp=sharing



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