Creating healthy and sustainable food cultures and practices in secondary schools using the Whole School Approach combined with citizen science

The current educational system mostly focuses on preparing children for the personal income generation. However, children should also be given the life skills and competencies they need to become active and positively contributing citizens in this world of global sustainability challenges. A re-orientation of education towards a more integrative Whole School Approach (WSA) is thus needed (Wals and Mathie, 2022). Food has a central role in everyday life as it is a basic human need with a connective role in school life (Rowe et al., 2011) and is also directly related to the health and sustainability of the planet and its people. This project will focus on food education and school food in order to study the way lower secondary schools in The Netherlands can use the framework of the WSA (curriculum content, learning methods, teacher professional development, school-community connections, school institution, policies) in order to generate a new culture of learning around health and sustainable food for future proof citizens. 1. Wals A. E.J. and R.G. Mathie. 2022. It takes a Whole School. American Scientist, vol. 110: 244-247. 2. Rowe, F. and D. Stewart. 2011. "Promoting connectedness through whole-school approaches: Key elements and pathways of influence", Health Education, Vol. 111 No. 1, pp. 49-65. https://doi.org/10.1108/09654281111094973.