S4W project focuses on the following objectives to: - train students on issues upon food waste management; - raise awareness to students to reduce food waste through pilot actions; - emphasize the important role that schools play as an educational agent sensitizing the future generations on food waste management; - demonstrate the potential for reduction of waste through source separation, reuse, and recycling of organic waste; - empower teachers and school directors by providing technical knowledge and up-to-date information on waste management and particularly on organic waste management: characteristics, treatment techniques, challenges, and benefits; - present case studies and examples from the discipline that have been successful in managing the organic fraction of their waste and could adapt on school environments; - encourage schools that do not yet take actions to start activities regarding managing waste particularly the organic fraction; - spread waste management education wide across schools in European Union by providing useful practices and methods.
Food waste is a recognized problem that has gained political, economic, and social importance in recent years. Most of the systemic challenges of eliminating food waste stem from certain mindsets and approaches that in turn come from the loss of our value for food. S4W focuses on piloting actions upon food waste prevention, management and reduction, and aims at fostering students’ ability to think critically and to adopt a proactive attitude by: 1) raising students’ awareness of the problem of food waste, increasing their knowledge about reasons for and impacts of food wastage; 2) pointing them towards specific options for actions that are within their sphere of influence by teaching them new skills related to evaluation of food quality and understanding proper food storage, food preservation options, and so on. S4W promotes awareness regarding the economic, social, and environmental consequences of food waste, highlighting actions and habits that people can take to reduce their own food waste. The project develops a curriculum and piloting actions which enable teachers to select those activities that best match the needs, abilities and interests of their students while also conforming to time and resource constraints.