Amplifier Student Mini-Grants

The current syndemic is a product of industrialized food systems. This project aims to illustrate that one of the cornerstones of fixing the syndemic is to have garden in all schools. Our project is designed to generate knowledge and educate event participants. This project is meant to engage the wider public with critical intersectionalities of food justice, educational justice, environmental justice and health justice. The critical question of our collective effort explores is how improving the food knowledge, food access, and food production will result in healthy children and healthy communities.

This Lab, in collaboration with environmental artist Joan Baron, created a performance on the problems and solution to the food crisis. At Emerge Festival 2022: Eating at the Edges, 5 student groups, dressed in 5 distinct colors, represented sustainably grown plants, herbs, and trees that thrive in the Sonoran desert. One student from each group moved about the Emerge event grounds with printed materials to share and invite them to stop by our group art installation and take home emerging food (i.e., seedlings). Additionally each group distributed postcards with QR codes that enable attendees to engage their interactive media Story Maps explaining how school gardens are a value packed vehicle for food justice.