Observing the meals students bring from home can allow you to identify culturally inclusive foods to add to your school menu.
Activity
Students who pack a lunch often bring familiar and preferred foods from home, which may include cultural foods. One practice to identify possible new menu items of culturally inclusive foods for students in your school or district is to observe what students are bringing from home.
Observation is the practice of noticing or perceiving information with one’s senses, such as watching and listening. Observation does not include interacting with the people and situations one is noticing and does not include assigning judgement to what one sees or hears.
This “Learn through Observation” activity from the School Meals Design Guide from No Kid Hungry by Share Our Strength guides participants through the practice of observing students in the lunchroom environment. This activity is suggested for directors, menu planners, managers and supervisors, dietetic interns, or project partners. The activity can focus on observing students who bring food from home. Notes from the observations can be shared with the key stakeholders of the Culturally Inclusive Recipe project to identify foods for consideration to include in the school meal menus.
