The Crunch
In 2016, ASDC worked with The Wellcome Trust to develop the Families Programme of The Crunch, a year of activities, events and resources looking at the relationship between our food, our health and our planet.
The Crunch Families Programme focussed on engaging families across England, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland with the following three questions:
1. Where does our food come from and how is it produced?
2. What is in our food and drink?
3. What is the impact that our food and drink have on our health, and the health of our planet?
Overall, The Crunch Families Programme engaged with 189,464 children and adults around the UK.
The final report, submitted to Welcome in March 2017 is available for download here.
You can read and download the reports from the other Work Packages, as well as the final report on the overall initiative from Opinion Leader here.
The Executive summary of the ASDC Report is below.
Executive Summary
The Crunch was a year of engagement experiences about our food, our health and our planet, created by Wellcome, a global charitable foundation that exists to improve health for everyone. The UK Association for Science and Discovery Centres (ASDC) delivered The Crunch programme for families in partnership with nine UK Science Centres, between May and October 2016. 189,464 children and adults participated, of which 62,150 were estimated to be from a postcode that ranks in the top 25% on the Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), or national equivalent. Reaching a diverse audience was a key objective of The Crunch.
The programme encouraged conversations with families around where our food comes from, what is in our food, and the impact our food has on our health and the health of our planet. ASDC worked with academic experts, engagement experts and leaders in community engagement to develop a programme of activities that nine UK Science Centres could then deliver in their centres and at outreach events, targeting families high on the IMD.
A central part of the engagement experience was the creation by ASDC of exceptional sets of equipment for the nine Science Centres to use to deliver engaging activities across the UK throughout the summer of 2016. ASDC also trained Science Centre staff on the equipment, how to run the activities and the background science at a two-day residential Training Academy in early 2016.
Across the UK, activities were delivered on 530 days by the nine Science Centres. Of these, 180 days were through outreach at a variety of over 80 different community events. These events ranged from small community fairs and city festivals to large agricultural shows and rural county fairs. A total of 76,292 people were engaged at these outreach events. Overall the programme reached 45.7% over the target number of participants and 13.8% over the target number of families from areas high on the Indices of Multiple Deprivation.
An evaluation study was undertaken, which included interviewing 2,217 participants in 864 families (864 adults and 1,353 Children) after they had taken part in events. The response of both adults and children was overwhelming positive:
- 83% said the activities made them want
to find out more about the connection between food, health and environmental
issues.
- 87% said the activities increased their
understanding of the interconnection of food, health and the planet.
- 97% agreed that the activities were fun.
- 88% said the activities increased their understanding of how what we eat affects our health.
- 82% said the activities increased their
understanding of how our food consumption affects the planet.
- 82% said the activities increased their
understanding about the future of food, and that something needs to change.
The programme also had a major impact on the nine Science Centres, as it provided them with the funding, resources, introductions and support to build sustainable partnerships with key local organisations, charities and communities, to build trusted relationships with families from areas high on the indices of deprivation. Overall 30.7% of those evaluated had never visited their local science centre before. This programme has provided a key legacy which science centres are keen to build upon.
Find out more about the project on The Crunch website.