California State University, Fullerton
EN-10: Community Partnerships

This ongoing event has been co-sponsored with Anaheim Union High School District the United Way of Orange County, and ScienceOC and STEM-OC since 2015. It is an opportunity for students from Orange County to share their ideas and work on sustainability. The Showcase features student presentations on a sustainability related project. The student is involved with any sustainability issue affecting their local community or country of origin the student would like to spotlight. In addition to the student presentations, sustainability related projects and displays will be on exhibit. Each school may enter up to three presentations. These may be individual or team efforts. Presentation topic areas should focus any aspect of sustainability, including but not limited to: Environment, Alternative Energy, Health, and Sustainable Design. The presentations can be about a project at school or another hands-on experience related to sustainability in the students' lives and in their communities. Through experiencing the presentation process, students will develop skills in verbal communication, articulating complex topics, advocacy and relating issues to their own lives and communities. Sustainability has emerged as a result of significant concerns about the unintended social, environmental, and economic consequences of consumption of our natural resources. These consequences can affect cultural continuity and knowledge, the health of our communities, and the future of young people. Sustainability means that we have and will continue to have the water, materials, and resources to protect human health and our environment. http://sustainability.fullerton.edu/showcase/

The U-ACRE Project is a collaboration between Cal State Fullerton, Santa Ana College, Fullerton College, and UC Santa Barbara. The project was established in 2011 by Sara Johnson, Professor of Anthropology at Cal State Fullerton, and has been continually funded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Hispanic Serving Institutions Education Grants program as well as other sources. In addition, the U-ACRE project has many community partners, including the Fullerton Arboretum, Monkey Business Cafe, Future Food Farms, American Heart Association Teaching Gardens, Ladera Vista School of the Arts, Pathways of Hope, Beechwood Elementary and Hermosa Drive Elementary. U-ACRE uses urban agriculture as a lens to understand complex issues facing our community, including food and housing insecurity, nutritional sufficiency, environmental justice, and sustainable development. We do this by engaging our students in community-based research, where our partners take a major role in identifying specific problems, and actively contribute to the research design. This approach has been shown to benefit communities and other participants Through being agents of change, and it has brought important benefits to our U-ACRE students. Students who engage in research demonstrate higher levels of interest in science, and higher rates of success and retention. Undergraduate research has also been shown to be effective at reducing the achievement gap between students of underrepresented groups and others. U-ACRE won a Best Practices Award for Sustainability in Academics (Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences) from the California Higher Education Sustainability Conference in 2017. https://chesc.org/pastaward_winners/2017-2/

The I-CAN Project is a joint effort by Monkey Business Café . I-CAN provides workforce development for young people who have recently been emancipated from the foster care system, who face considerable challenges in housing, food security, and educational opportunities. Monkey Business Café is a unique farm-to-table enterprise that integrates the Fullerton Arboretum’s urban farm with a neighborhood restaurant. Coupled with applied research activities conducted by U-ACRE, this unique program prepares former foster youth for career pathways through a complete farm-to-table training program. Participants from Monkey Business Café grow produce in the Fullerton Arboretum farm, in a collaborative mentorship with Arboretum staff and U-ACRE faculty and students, as well as service-learning students from several Cal State Fullerton classes. The participants then use the produce at Monkey Business Café, where they receive training in culinary arts including recipe development and food preparation. The participants also work with U-ACRE faculty and students to conduct nutritional analysis of Monkey Business Café menu items and product line using professional software at Cal State Fullerton. This project is supported by Community Food Projects grant number 2016-33800-25587 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

http://sustainability.fullerton.edu/showcase/ http://sustainability.fullerton.edu/u-acre/ http://sustainability.fullerton.edu/i-can/i-can.php