New Perspectives in Science Education

Food safety, food security and its counterpart, food waste, are among the priorities set by the new UN Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) and the 2030 Agenda. The SDG 12, in particular, focuses on ensuring “sustainable consumption and production patterns”. The implications of this challenge are multi-layered: economic, social, political and, above all, cultural.
Vocational education on such topics, addressed to students from two Teramo’ upper secondary schools, has been the main goal of a three-year project implemented by IZSAM between 2016 and 2018. The project was carried out in the framework of the National school reform entered into force in 2015, as well as a contribution to implementing the overall lifelong learning policies set by the EU 2020 Strategy, the Copenhagen Process and the Lisbon Strategy on Vocational education training (VET). Educational activities have been addressed to specific, interrelated themes, such as the One health approach, food safety, environmental sustainability, how to carry out research activities, and how to disseminate to a target of peers scientific knowledge through digital tools, with a focus on social media (i.e. the technique of storytelling).
Classroom lectures, visit to laboratories, creation of digital communication tools under the supervision of scientific experts (e.g. newsletter), testing of e-cloud instruments and practical quali-quantitative research exercises through questionnaires and daily diaries addressed to the beneficiaries’ familiar contexts, have been the main methodological and conceptual tools utilised so far. Indeed, during the third year, the health education project has been centred on food waste and food safety, an attempt to sum up the previous experiences but also the way to introduce the beneficiaries to a real research environment. Students were involved in on-going research activities carried out at the Institute for the measurement of food waste in their households (research project D.E.MET.R.A. – Distribuzione Equilibrata delle risorse alimentari attraverso un METodo per la Riduzione degli sprechi e la solidarietA’ sociale sostenibile).
The three-year project transferred to the participating students multi-layered competences based on acquired new knowledge and soft skills, all related to the scientific domains in which IZSAM, a public health body belonging to the Italian National Health system, is active.

Keywords: Health education, sustainability, food safety, food waste, circular economy, scientific communication;