The Ratatouille Food Project
THE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF BRESCIA NEW NUTRITION PROGRAM: INTRODUCING THE “RATATOUILLE FOOD PROJECT”
SHARING WITH OUR FRIENDS OUR NEW, FORWARD THINKING EDUCATIONAL EVENT
As from school year 2011/12 we have decided to introduce a new educational concept aimed at involving students, teachers and parents alike. With the help of a well known local supplier of high quality food, Gagliazzi, we have re-designed our school food offer and we have introduced the “Ratatouille Food Project”.
Gagliazzi is a food provider of an excellent level, very detailed and extremely innovative and has effectively cooperated with us in shaping up the program, which is based on the following points:
- Food as a fundamental intercultural asset
We believe that the food habits are a strong cultural value. We as an International School are deeply rooted into our territory while our outlook and mindset and profoundly multicultural. Our “Special Food Days”, which will be taking place once a month, every last Thursdays, will feature local cuisine specialties, mingled with international dishes. Here’s the 2011/12 calendar (single menus will be available in due time before the fixed dates):
- October 2011: Thursday 20: Brescia local cuisine, in the occasion of the “Sagra del Chiodino” of Dello (BS) on October 22/23
- November 2011: Thursday 24: British Cuisine
- January 2012: Thursday 26: Ligurian Cuisine
- February 2012: Thursday 23: Spanish Cuisine
- March 2012: Thursday 22: Emilian Cuisine
- May 2012: Thursday 23: Austrian Cuisine
The “Special Food Days” will be preceded by the viewing of the Disney/Pixar movie Ratatouille and after the film, fun snacks and some sort of Ratatouille-related games, and activities will be proposed to pupils. Teachers will be actively participating into the project, allowing them to quickly grasp the cultural essence of the extraordinarily rich Italian culinary heritage, and introducing Nutrition into their units, thus becoming a real subject in class whilst the names of the dishes will be promoting language acquisition of the Italian language.
As far as International Baccalaureate, this nutrition project involves our fulfillment of numerous standards and practices. In fact it perfectly fits into our Educational Program in the following numerous items:
A.4: Supports international-mindedness across the school community
A.7: Promotes language learning of the mother tongue
B2.11: Utilizes the expertise of the community to enhance learning
C1.6: Incorporates differentiated learning techniques (teacher collaboration and reflection on the curriculum)
C2.5: Supports meaningful student action within the curriculum
C2.6: Provides relevant experiences for students
C2.7: Promotes student awareness of individual, local, national and world issues
C2.8: Provides opportunities for reflection on human commonality, diversity and multiple perspectives
C3.5: Supports students becoming actively responsible for their own learning
C3.6: Addresses human commonality, diversity and multiple perspectives
C3.13: Engages students to reflect on how, what and why they are learning
As for the students, they will be involved in many different manners:
- By having them color a regional map.
- By making games and puzzles out of the regions and have fun identifying which dish goes where.
- By giving some of them the privilege of writing the text of the menu on a big piece of paper posted at the entrance.
- By educating the older students in order to have them ‘instruct’ the younger ones about the regional dishes.
- By blending regional dishes with other regional items (architecture, agricultural products, famous people, cities, songs), so that students get a well-rounded “tour”.
- By having them make postcards of the taste regions to give their parents and grandparents.
- By introducing the Gagliazzi representatives as guest speakers on nutrition.
- By allowing them to come up with ideas for improvement to be given to Gagliazzi.
- Food as an Environmental Friendly Resource
We have always been very careful at environment and differentiated collection of waste. Nowadays, more and more attention is being paid to minimizing production of waste, thus actively reducing packaging and unnecessary boxes.
As from school year 2011/12, at our cafeteria we will be introducing:
- A better differentiated collection of waste (humid, paper, cardboard, aluminum foils…), involving students and teachers and all staff alike.
- Bottled water will only be supplied in 1.5 lt format, resulting in less plastic to throw away.
- Quantity of food will be calibrated from time to time, resulting in an unnecessary and anti-educational waste of food.
- Salad, Vegetables and Fruit Balanced Consumption
Children are notorious for not willingly eating salad, fruit and vegetables at lunch and dinner. We have therefore conceived and designed a well balanced nutrition scheme which will help students to approach differently those nourishments.
- A salad and vegetables hors d’oeuvre is served before the first course
- Bread will be served only after first course is over (as per Lombardy Health Authority – ASL – guidelines).
- Morning and afternoon fruit (fresh, de-hydrated, compote, salad) and yogurt snacks will be supplied and will be part of the daily lunch package.
The whole “Ratatouille Project” will be backed up and co-designed by Dr. Susalba Rosati, a medical doctor and a nutritionist. Dr. Rosati as long as the whole Gagliazzi staff will be available during the year with dedicated meetings with parents (full calendar available during the first month of school).
Families will be finding details of the daily menu browsing the web site www.cosamangiamiofiglio.it (currently under construction). The same site will be informing parents about Lombardy Health Authority ASL guidelines and hints for dinner menu, according to what eaten at lunch.
