Calvin Ng Khai Boon, Lee Wen Jie, Ong Ming Chung, Syed Muhammad Reza Bin Nagib, Tan Yong Bin
Academic Advisor: Dr. Chua Siew Chin
The issue of food waste in Singapore is prevalent and increasingly severe. This city-state generated 791,000 tonnes of food waste, equivalent to the weight of over 3,500 MRT trains (National Environment Agency [NEA], 2018). Outreach initiatives have been implemented to not only raise awareness of the environmental and societal impact of food waste but also to educate the public on responsible food consumption. However, currently, these initiatives have mainly targeted children in the primary school level and above but not pre-school children. Existing literature states that children aged 0 to 6 years old have the brain capacity to absorb information quickly. Hence, good habits are best introduced at a young age to ensure maximum time for their formation and retention. Thus, our project aims to educate children in pre-schools regarding the food waste issue and to inculcate responsible food consumption habits. We conducted a 2-hour food waste education workshop, split into two 1-hour sessions, targeted at pre-school children. To measure the effectiveness of the workshop, we conducted two surveys and Food Poster. Our pre-survey after the first workshop indicates that an average of 10 out of 12 students understood the lesson. Our post-survey after the second workshop indicates the same results hence indicating their memory retained the lesson. Our Food poster collected data of the students’ meal behaviour for 2 weeks. The students did not waste food in any of their meals. We also interviewed the teachers, who state that the children are now motivated to not waste food.
Keywords: Food, Responsible Consumption, Behavioural Change, Educational Workshop, Pre-schooler