Browsing by Author "Orhala-Halminen, Heli"

This thesis examines how sustainable food education in schools can make the pupil more aware of food waste if there are there appropriate teaching materials to support teaching about food waste. Previous home economics educational research shows the potential of school meals, home economics and class teaching in supporting students' food waste skills through sustainable food education. In addition, from the perspective of the home economics education phenomenon, it can be stated that teaching material on food waste can be found to support teaching, but textbooks on food waste as part of sustainability education are still scarce. The aim of this thesis is to examine teaching and teaching material on food waste through ethnographic methods. The research material has been obtained by observing and interview-ing classroom teachers and home economics teachers. The observation took place in a prod-uct development workshop for classroom and home economics teachers, where teaching ma-terials on food waste were devised to support teaching. The observation material consisted of documents and a text diary. Interviews were conducted as semi-structured theme interviews with three classroom teachers and three home economics teachers. The views of classroom teachers and home economics teachers about food waste and its teaching materials were analyzed with qualitative content analysis. Sustainable food education related to food waste was seen as an essential part of school meals and home economics in primary education. Pupils’ food waste skills can be promoted by taking appropriate teaching materials of food waste and its use in teaching into account. Collaboration between the school staff as food educators and motivating, age-appropriate teaching materials were considered to play a key role in teaching about food waste. However, the multidimensional definition of food waste and the lack of appreciation of food can be seen as a challenge to evolving pupils’ food waste skills as part of sustainable development.