The Capstone Prescott College

The “Cooking Together Cookbook” is a response to child nutrition challenges that supports an environment where children and parents can learn and enjoy cooking activities together with the goal of improving child/parent relationships, child mental health, and nutrition. Casey McManus created the cookbook as her Capstone project by first examining existing literature for the obstacles that children face in accessing nutritional food. Inspired by the scholarship, she created 16 seasonally inspired recipes and activities that emphasize sensory learning and food literacy components to engage children and their families in fun ways to celebrate nutritious and inspired collaborative cooking.


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Indigenous people around the world are initiating food sovereignty movements to regain control of their food systems. The globalized industrial food system has increased the disconnection from traditional foodways and knowledge and has increased the risks of diet-related diseases. Kit Laux examines the food sovereignty movement as one that can build resiliency and reconnect people to nutritious and culturally appropriate food. As a member of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community on the L’Anse Indian Reservation in Michigan, she describes for her Capstone how Native American tribes throughout the nation are implementing food sovereignty initiatives to increase control of their food systems linking to culture, health, and economic development. Her project’s goal is to increase visibility and awareness of food sovereignty topics specific to her bioregion by developing a website that will share information and provide links to resources that support regaining control of a more traditional food system. Her research points to social media as a proven and effective tool to distribute information widely and quickly throughout her target community. The website she created is drawing on a wide variety of marketing metrics and data analytics to create impact indicators as a strategy for success.


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One of the impacts of COVID-19 was a dramatic rise in unemployment, and with that, increases in food insecurity experienced by those in Bianca Garcia’s hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada. Noting how Three Square, Southern Nevada’s only food bank, managed to pivot effectively to cope with the increased need, Bianca became interested in what enabled the organization to respond quickly and efficiently. For her Capstone, she provides a case study of Three Square and its response to rapid changes in the need to provide food to the region. She compares the Three Square model to three other organizations doing similar work on various scales and examines the social network of Three Square to provide analysis and recommendations on best practices.


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For consumers interested in making ethical choices regarding meat consumption, Karlee Shields wrote a handbook with the goal to re-connect people to the food they eat as a tool to shift animal production toward more environmentally restorative and cruelty-free practices.


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Trigger Warning: Content may trigger those with sensitivities to issues related to disordered eating and body image.

Zephyr Schott brings forward a book proposal as their Capstone project. The book is an examination of the ways the State acts on bodies and eating modalities through control of food systems and concomitant systems of oppression. Through auto-ethnography and examination of history, Zephyr explores issues related to body and food autonomy, taking a critical view of food systems as they contribute to white supremacy, colonization, fatphobia, ableism, speciesism, and (cis)sexism. The book addresses systems of confinement and oppression associated with “treatment” of disordered eating, challenging the pathologization of the perceptions and dynamics of food and embodiment.


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Prescott College MS in Sustainable Food Systems student Rachel Wilson examines the Massachusetts Commonwealth Quality Program (CQP) as a case study for a successful state-led certification program that is accepted by all produce buyers in the state with reduced compliance obstacles for farmers. She created an original survey and provides an analysis of interview results from produce growers, buyers, and key stakeholders in Missouri and Illinois with the recommendation that the CQP model be adopted in the St. Louis region and other U.S. states to support the market inclusion for more local produce growers.


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