Anthropology class addresses "Food, Justice & Community in Fort Worth"

Greg Reininger helping one of the Tarrant County Master Gardeners build a cold bed door for their demonstration garden at the Resource Connection

Fort Worth, Texas

4/20/2011

By Dave Aftandilian

Spring 2010 was the second time I taught “ANTH 30663: Environmental Justice, Human Rights, and Agriculture” at TCU with the assistance of the Center for Community Involvement & Service Learning. The first part of the course introduces students to the problems our global food system creates for people, both here in the U.S. and in Mexico. For example, we discuss the health hazards to which migrant farmworkers in Mexico and the U.S. are exposed while they work to grow our food, hazards which include pesticide poisoning and very poor housing conditions (some of these workers literally live in holes in the ground). And we talk about why people in many parts of the U.S. lack access to adequate, nutritious food, and how this has contributed to an epidemic of obesity and diabetes, especially among low-income urban residents and people of color.

Service-learning comes into the second half of the course, in which we discuss potential solutions to these problems with our  food system. Before the semester begins, I talk with a number of local community organizations about potential projects they would like our students to help them with. I then invite members of those organizations into the classroom so that they can discuss their work on food and justice with the class. Students choose a project they will work on in small groups, together with one or more mentors from the partner community organization.

This time, most of the students were inspired to work on community gardening. Two groups worked with the Fairmount Neighborhood Association to help install and publicize a new community garden in Fairmount, a community on Fort Worth’s south side that lacks sufficient access to quality, affordable produce. (TCU has played an important role in making the dream of this garden a reality, thanks in large part to the support of Dr. Andy Schoolmaster, Dean of the AddRan College of Liberal Arts.) A third group chose to partner with the Tarrant County Master Gardener Association (TCMGA) to help maintain the Resource Connection demonstration garden, where community members can come and learn gardening that the Tarrant Area Food Bank will provide to partner agencies who want to start community gardens in their neighborhoods. And a fifth group created an informative, fun second-grade curriculum about several food plants (including corn, tomatoes and wheat); R.E.A.L. School Gardens will be able to share this curriculum with local teachers to use in their classes along with hands-on work in their school gardens. 

Nearly all the students who work on service-learning projects in my class come away with a much better understanding of not just the course topic, but also of themselves and the local community. Some have even described it as one of their favorite experiences in college, because the service-learning aspect of the course let them apply their knowledge in the real world (not just talk about it in class). For example, in his final paper, one student wrote, “I often do not have the chance to experience how my education is applied in the real world. Working with the Fairmount [Community Garden] allowed me to get out and make real connections with people…and get to see how the garden pulled the community together.”

I also like these projects because they empower students, showing them that they can make a difference. And they give both the students and me a chance to put TCU’s mission statement, “To educate individuals to think and act as ethical leaders and responsible citizens” into practice to help our local community.

Story originally appeared in Profiles of Service, a Community Involvement  & Service-Learning publication. Visit involved.tcu.edu to learn more.