Adler Planetarium
Civic Hack Day
Youth Focused
Meet The Food Desert Hacker Team:
Jenai - Mikva Youth Coordinator
Mark - Mentor/Adler Planetarium/Visualization
Julia - Mentor/Chicago Architecture Foundation
Jen - Mentor/Astrophysicist Extrodinare/Data
Doug - Mentor/Astrophysicist/Data
Francessa (Fra) Mentor/Astrophysicist/Data
Pam - Mentor/Science Educator/Web Designer
Food Deserts and Youth
There has been a lot of attention recently, both locally and nationally, focusing on food deserts that exist on the South and West sides of Chicago. The most obvious solution to this problem would be to make access to grocery stores or fresh markets available in every community within walking distance (1 mile radius) for all residents. Even if this could become a reality, it is the adults that do the shopping for the family and make the food choices.
Our Story
The Chi Food Oasis team is a collaborative group comprised of a youth leader, scientists (Astrophysicists),data technologist, and an educator who came together during the Civic Hack Day event in Chicago hosted by the Adler Planetarium. This event was focused on addressing problems facing youth in Chicago. Prior to the event, Mikva youth leaders identified four problems high priority problems that would become our hack challenges.
Our Problem: Food Deserts in Chicago Communities
When young people/teens stop at a store to buy snacks on the way to or from school, what food choices do they have? If a corner store sold hot chips, sugary sodas, candy, honey buns, etc. as well as fresh bananas, oranges, apples, peaches, pears, strawberries, pineapple, etc. would they choose the healthy or the non-healthy items? What a surprise it would be to see a student come to school with a bag of peaches, plumbs, and oranges instead of three bags of hot chips and a 20 oz. soda or fruit punch. The decision to stock certain food items is based on demand as much as it is on supply. If young patrons do not buy fruit it won't keep long on a shelf, It will ripen, and then be thrown away. We decided early in the process that we would need to educate young people, adults, and the community at large on eating healthier and where/how they could have access to better, healthier food choices.
What We Have:
Grocery Store List
Food Desert KML
Farmer's Market List
Fresh Moves Interview/Video
What We'll Have:
POP Map
Demographics Map
Google Doc
What We'll Make
Fresh Moves Video/Transcript
World Wide Telescope Layer set/Tour
Infogram Site
Wix Site
Google Maps Site
