Food education in different countries
Intellectual Output number: O8
Responsible project partner: The Netherlands; Wageningen University & Research & The Hoge Hof
Description: Taste mission in three languages.
Tasks: Recently, Wageningen University & Research developed Taste Missions. This is an innovative way to connect hands-on activities to a broader food education programme by making use of principles of gamification. Research showed that gamification enhanced the effectivity of food education.
A Taste Mission is a learning module about one of the basic product groups of the Wheel of Five of the Netherlands Nutrition Centre. There are nine Taste Missions available for students between 4 and 12 years old:
| Taste Missions | Group |
| Vegetable garden | 1-4 |
| Bread | 1-2 |
| Dairy | 3-4 |
| Fruit | 5-6 |
| Drinks | 5-6 |
| Meat, fish, legumes, eggs and nuts | 5-6 |
| Vegetables | 7-8 |
| Oil & fat | 7-8 |
| Potatoes, rice and pasta | 7-8 |
The focus is on discovering the origin of food. A Taste Mission consists of lessons but also hands-on activities, e.g. taste experiments, growing your own vegetables, an excursion to a fruit or vegetable grower or a food factory, a cooking lesson and a visit to a supermarket. Every Taste Mission is introduced by a main character who challenges the students to learn more about their food. During the lessons, the main character also gives the students feedback via the interactive whiteboard.
The Taste Missions will be tested in different contexts in other European countries. The Taste Missions are developed in Dutch but one will be translated to English and Danish. The possibilities of Taste Missions in these countries will be evaluated to see if it has a wide applicability across European countries.