Nutrition Literacy and Environmental Education in the Southside Fort Worth Community
Fall 2023 activities in the Southside community
by Sara Washington on behalf of Dr. Alexander’s Tuesday PHN clinical team: David Bahena, Mariah Castillo, Makenzie Devine, Katie Flathom, Hadley Flessner, Julia Gates, Maria Grant-Villacorta, Kate Longenecker, Everest Merki, and Lauren Otterbein.
Throughout this semester, members of Public Health Nursing clinical section 100 committed to teaching the Southside community of Fort Worth about nutrition/food literacy and environmental education. We partnered with several different organizations and attended events hosted in the Southside Fort Worth community in order to provide education about topics that would promote the overall wellbeing of the people we encountered by partnering with specific organizations and attending different events. The organizations that we were partnered with as part of our clinical experience were HOPE Farm, both the Morningside and Como locations.
At HOPE Farm, we worked in their garden on our first day there and pulled weeds so it would be able to flourish and be enjoyed going into the cooler fall months. We got to learn about HOPE Farm’s mission of pouring into young boys who are without a father in the home in order to help them grow into honorable men as well as teach manners and lifelong lessons. We had the privilege of spending time with and getting to know these boys of all ages as well as teaching them about food literacy and environmental education through interactive activities. We also partnered with the Historic Southside Neighborhood Association, Southside Community Center (SCC), and Fort Worth Police Department on the National Night Out and the Kids Environmental Education Network (KEEN) Group and the SCC on the Historic Southside Fall Festival and Eclipse event, where we focused on food literacy and environmental education.
Our food literacy teaching emphasized eating a balanced meal through a “build my plate” activity using different food models for people to visualize. Our environmental education approach included several activities: an outdoor nature scavenger hunt, using live models to explain the life cycle of different insects, creating self-portraits using objects found in nature, and a crayon leaf rubbing activity. Throughout the semester, we were able to bring our lessons to life, teaching others about important topics for health promotion.