Food Insecurity and suggestions of how we can do something about it in classrooms

I’m a big fan of the television drama The West Wing, which premiered in 1999. I remember in one episode early in the second season (2000), the character President Bartlet, while campaigning, said that 1 in 5 children in the U.S. was growing up in poverty. It is a good assumption that this also implied 1 in 5 American kids is food insecure, if not routinely hungry. 

Twenty six years later, we have nearly 1 in 5 children in the U.S. being food insecure. In an age of record stock markets (which have been setting all-time records since the Obama administration through the present, minus the COVID period) and humanity’s first trillionaire, we have made very little to no real progress with ensuring all of our children have ready access to nutritious food, where the 18.4% figure (from 2024 data) is over 14 million kids not knowing when the next meal is coming, at least not consistently.  

I suspect most who read this will be aware, if for any other reason than common sense, that children don’t do as well in school when they are hungry. And this is the case for those students who already are coming from lower income families, which have other issues against the school children coming from those families, which include going to schools that are likely underfunded relative to the schools kids from higher-income families attend; and lower income families and children are overrepresented by children of color. For example, Black and Latino families are about twice as likely to be food insecure than White families. Food insecurity is a factor in the academic achievement gaps we see in so many diverse school districts around the country (here are data from the Evanston, IL, school districts to show examples of academic achievement gaps), and low performance in many urban school districts.

The reasons food insecurity is a factor in academic performance and student learning are numerous. Even adults are hard-pressed to remain healthy and perform at work at optimal levels when hungry. Lower income families in general have less access to high-level nutritious food, often living in the ‘food desert’ areas of cities, where fresh produce is miles away. Hunger (and the resulting decrease in the nutrition needed for good overall health) affects concentration, physical and mental health, proper brain development of children, energy levels, behavior, mood, memory, and motor skills. 

I and countless other educators presently worry about the next few years when it comes to nutrition in public schools because of the politicization of federal aid to low income families, such as cuts to SNAP benefits and funding for free and reduced lunch programs around the US, which are already affecting millions of our children. 

One avenue to help with this situation in schools is to consider having school gardens, both outside and inside schools. Indoor farming has become more possible in classrooms over the past decade due to efforts such as the Green Bronx Machine, founded by my friend Stephen Ritz, who has taken time to write full K-12 curricula centered around growing food in classrooms. He uses primarily tower gardens, and has helped transform his school in a poverty stricken section of the Bronx, and turn around not only the school, but the entire community. He has taken this global, and helps set up school gardens and food programs all around the world. I have tower gardens in my classroom and adjacent research center, where my students and I grow fresh produce to donate to a local food pantry over the fall and winter months, when outdoor farming is not possible around Chicago. 

This past school year we grew and donated 809 bags (mostly gallon sized) of arugula, kale, chard, basil, parsley, and lettuces (166 pounds) from late September through early May, using just 5 towers, which went to dozens of families each week who rely on the food pantry. We will be expanding this with student-built grow systems both in the high school and some elementary classrooms in our feeder district. We hope to add more and more resources throughout more and more classrooms each new school year, since the need for food assistance continues to grow around the country, up to 14% of households from 10% since COVID.

The US was making some progress reducing food insecurity from highs during the Great Recession, but the percentage is rising back to those levels after the COVID pandemic. 

For educators, there are two other pieces of this I’d like to mention. One is the inclusion of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into classes and community service projects. The second is to realize the future importance of indoor farming to this generation of young children, due to climate change. 

The UN SDGs are something I have included in my classes for most of the past decade, after they were adopted by all nations in 2015. As a science teacher, most of the 17 issues defined as the SDGs will need STEM as a primary means of finding real solutions to those issues, and No Hunger, SDG #2, is one of those issues. Any type of classroom and school farming is something that can bring attention to our children, and make them aware of and able to help those classmates and community families who may not be as fortunate as others when it comes to food insecurity. 

Things like possible population growth, and most importantly, the effects climate change (SDG #13) will have on global agriculture, will make outdoor farming more and more challenging, and likely less productive as top soil loss and nutrient level degradation in our most fertile farmlands (especially outside the US) continue to decline. The growing fresh water crisis in many parts of the world plays into this complex system. Indoor farming is something my students and I talk about as a part of the solution to feeding their world several decades from now, and it already is having an impact here and in other parts of the world, where they are investigating industrial indoor farming (mostly hydroponics). I think this is something educators can use in multiple ways of applying STEM knowledge and applications, as well as developing community service projects that begin introducing this important concept to the children who will be seeing this type of farming in their lives, and as one of the pieces of solutions to climate change the world will need to consider and develop on bigger and bigger scales, such as this massive indoor farm in New Jersey, from AeroFarms. 

It is possible to link indoor farming in classrooms, regardless of STEM subject one teaches - I’m doing this as an AP Physics teacher, and the students love having the tower gardens in the room and helping feed community members, despite it being outside of our curriculum. 

It is important to make students aware that not everyone is able to have consistent and predictable meals. It is important that we get nutritious food to those kids who need it, in order to help them grow and develop as healthy as possible, which in turn will optimize their learning in school. It is important this generation understands that these newer farming techniques and technologies exist and are developing here and abroad because it will become more important in the future due to climate change. We owe it to them. 

Inspired by quantum mechanics, how I think about my students (and humans in general)

 Yes, this title is correct. I've been inspired by quantum mechanics to develop a different mindset about how to think about my students, and human beings in general! What on earth does this mean?!

If you know anything about quantum mechanics, it is probably the core concept you've heard of (usually this comes up in a chemistry class in high school, but usually not much is done with it except a mention of the concept): particle-wave duality. 

This is the notion that something like an electron, which most people think of as a tiny solid ball, or particle, can actually, under the right conditions that we're observing the electron, can act as a wave. Or that a photon, which is light and most would think of as a wave, can actually, under the right conditions that we're observing the photon, can act as a particle. An example of an electron or other similar pieces of matter, acting like particles is shown below. 

This is from an old photo in my classroom of particles moving in a bubble chamber at Fermilab. Each track is an individual subatomic particle moving through a medium. Particles do this; at least in this type of experiment or observation. The same electrons in this photo, if observed in a different way, like moving through a small hole or slit, will look like this:

This is an electron beam in a cathode ray tube in my lab. The alternating rings we see are electrons undergoing diffraction, which only waves can do! 

The important question to consider is: when an electron is just moving through space, and we are not observing it, is it a particle or a wave????

The answer is, in quantum mechanics, both! When not being observed, we cannot know what state the electron is in, and mathematically we create a wave function that has the two possible states in the function, along with coefficients that are related to the probability of being either a particle or a wave! 

Probabilities, and a mix of possible states when not being observed, is where I start relating this to my students. Also, the notion that the way we observe an electron helps 'select' the state we actually observe the electron, is key (some say that an observation 'collapses the wave function' into one specific state of the object, which is the state we observe...either a particle or a wave, if it's an electron). 

Here's what I mean for human beings. Think of all the emotional or mood states in which a human can be observed. We can be happy, sad, angry, curious, bored, excited, annoyed, and so on. However, can we know, exactly, which of these particular states our best friend is in at a specific moment in time, when he or she is not with us? If we cannot observe them in any way, of course the answer is we cannot know for sure. The best we can do is give the odds, or probabilities, of them being in a particular state at a given moment. This is no different than how we treat electrons in quantum mechanics. 

And then, when our friend walks into our room and we can actually now observe him or her, then we see one of those possible states 'crystallize' or 'collapse' into one specific emotional or mood state! And, the way we observe them can have an effect on which state we see. If we are in a room that is dark, damp, and depressing, and/or we are in a bad mood, this will affect which state we see our friend in - they may have been in a good mood just before walking in, but became more depressed or concerned for us when they see us and our mood, or the environment of the room! Again, this is similar to quantum mechanics, where the way we observe an electron (i.e. the experiment we do), selects the specific state, particle or wave, that we actually observe. 

So I think of my students as 'quantum critters', who are some complex mix of possible emotional or mood states, all superposed with each other when I have not yet seen the students. When they are in the hallways walking to my room, I do not have a clue what mood state they are in - I can only assign probabilities that they are happy or sad or angry, etc., at any given moment before stepping into my room. This is like an emotional or mood wave function. What's more, and makes this even more complex a situation, human beings have unique, complex emotional/mood wave functions! We are all different from each other, because we have a unique set of probabilities for being in a given emotional state. My students are not at all like the way we traditionally have thought about humans for over a century - where, just because they are the same age, all 3rd graders are basically identical to each other (and this can be said for every grade level). Even if you say this is ridiculous, it is certainly how we have treated them for a century in nearly all schools. All 8 year old kids coming to school are put in the same 3rd grade classroom, given the same supplies and books and resources, do the same activities and lessons for the same amount of time on the same day, take the same assessments, and are expected to learn the same things and do equally well. Even if some kids do poorly, not much time is taken to fix the problems, because the class has to move on to the next topic in order to complete the curriculum in the same amount of time, regardless of how well any one student is or is not learning. 

This sounds like we think of students as being identical to me! And it is ridiculous! 

Thinking of students, and all human beings, as unique, complex mixtures of possible states, with unique and complex mixtures of talents and strengths and weaknesses and interests and intelligences (such as the eight intelligences defined in Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences), is a more realistic view of a human being! This type of mindset for a teacher is invaluable because it forces us to think differently than the traditional approach to education, teaching, and learning - and it forces us to set up our classes differently, and provide a better mix of teaching techniques, better variety in activities and types of lessons, and allowing for more student input and opportunities for them to learn more and better. It forces us to think about and add more SEL skills, or as I call them, Everyday Essential Life Skills (EELS), which all humans need to be strong in for everyday life. 

A strange diagram helps show how I think about a student, or every human being - a complex, unique mixture of possible emotional/mood states: 

WE ARE ALL DIFFERENT!! SO WE NEED TO SETUP SCHOOLS AND CLASSROOMS TO DEAL WITH THIS BETTER THAN WE HAVE, SO EVERY STUDENT HAS A CHANCE TO MAXIMIZE THEIR LEARNING AND SKILLSETS! 

We are NOT all the same, where the traditional (i.e. standardized) teaching method is to give everyone the same things at the same times and doing the same lessons to take the same assessments on the same days, while expecting the same results...this does not work for all students, and way too many are left behind! 

Let's change the mindset from traditional education to a 'quantum education' approach, where we identify, accept, and work with the FACT that EVERY STUDENT IS COMPLEXLY UNIQUE! 

There's more about all this given in my TED Talk, with an example of doing this with new levels of (unprecedented) success when addressing the issue of racial academic achievement gaps that plague so many diverse districts across the country, in something we called Project Excite.