Pilot Light

⭐ Today's Fellow Friday spotlight is on: Ms. Woods!

🌱 Ms. Woods is a member of the first "Feeding Futures" 2-year teaching cohort, a group of educators dedicated to bringing food and agriculture education to students across the state of Illinois. Currently, the Feeding Futures fellows are working on designing a new curriculum grounded in Pilot Light's Food Education Standards that will offer students a comprehensive understanding of food, agriculture, and career pathways in these fields.

📣 Ms. Woods' Food Advocacy Project:
Dvorak School Of Excellence’s 8th grade students focused on natural selection in a food desert as their advocacy project. Students studied the short and long-term effects of living in food a desert versus living in food oasis. Sixth and seventh graders took the eighth graders research a little bit further by studying a few of the most prominent health ailments in the community.

After their research was completed, middle school lead their community in taking preventative and proactive measures. They displayed their work in the hallways of their school and donated some of their advocacy posters to local community organizations. Students posters gave healthier alternatives to some of our favorite cultural foods, promote physical activity, listed several gardens/ organizations in the nearby area where fresh fruit, and vegetables were available affordable, and even some with an option for delivery. Students also gave a tutorial of how to properly monitor blood pressure to both children and adults.

As their legacy project, middle school has left this garden behind for the next generation of leaders, and young explorers. It is a place where we gather, heal, eat, and grow.

👏Thank you for bringing Food & Agriculture Education to your community, Ms. Woods!

Ready to start your Food Education journey? There's two great opportunities for educators right now to join the growing Pilot Light community in 2026-27!

🍎The Food Education Fellowship applications close May 25th! This is a yearlong, paid opportunity for PreK-12 educators in the U.S.

🍏Feeding Futures is a unique, two-year paid opportunity for 3rd-5th grade Illinois educators looking to advance Food & Agriculture Education across the state. Applications are open through June 1st.

Learn more and apply to these opportunities today at www.pilotlightchefs.org!