GEM (Grown, Edible, Meaningful): Herbal Probes for Community-Driven Environmental Change

该提案旨在开发和评估一种方法，从不同的信仰团体收集有关文化、环境价值和饮食传统的说法。该工具建立在文化探针的概念之上，它可以用来研究人们的生活方式选择和价值观，并且，创新地，将它们作为社区成员之间分享学习的手段，而不仅仅是反馈给设计师/研究人员。该项目将社区种植的食物作为一种探索活动，参与者通过这种活动嵌入、表达和分享文化价值观和可持续的生活选择，利用社区种植项目的成功将人们彼此联系起来，与他们的环境联系起来，与可持续和健康生活的问题联系起来。参与者将被邀请通过社区和信仰团体来选择和种植可食用的植物，作为“草药探针”，在群体背景下激发关于来源、共享、可持续性和文化的讨论。利兹两个不同文化多样性城市地区的居民将在一个启动车间准备回收容器，然后种植和培育一种可食用植物的种子，选择对他们有象征意义的植物。到了收获季节，他们会团聚在一起，分享收获和这些植物对他们来说所代表的故事，从而也让他们对价值观和生活选择有了更深的了解。多余的香草和蔬菜可以交换。这个过程将以一种与日常生活相结合的方式发展环境友好生活的各个方面，同时激发人们的反思，同时揭示不同社区、文化和信仰对环境生活的不同态度。将对账目进行分析，以告知项目的两个方面-与人们如何看待环境信息相关的食物的不同传统是什么？在家庭生活中使用草药探针对环境可持续实践的兴趣和参与有何影响？

The proposal seeks to develop and assess a way to gather accounts from different faith communities about culture, environmental values and food traditions. The tool builds on the concept of cultural probes, which can be used to research people's lifestyle choices and values, and, innovatively, using them as a means to share learning between community members rather than purely feeding back to designer/researchers. The project uses communally grown food as the probe activity through which participants embed, articulate and share cultural values and sustainable life choices, drawing on the success of community growing projects to connect people with each other, with their environment and with issues of sustainable and healthy living.Participants will be invited through community and faith groups to choose and grow edible plants as 'herbal probes' to inspire discussion about provenance, sharing, sustainability and culture in a group context. Residents in two distinct culturally-diverse urban areas of Leeds will start the growing season by preparing recycled containers at a launch workshop, then planting and nurturing a seed for an edible plant chosen to have symbolic meaning to them. By harvest time, they reunite to share the produce and stories of what the plants represent to them, thereby also giving insight into values and life choices. Excess herbs and vegetables can be swapped. The process will develop aspects of environmentally-friendly living in a way that integrates with ordinary life yet inspires reflection, while eliciting accounts that reveal different attitudes to environmental living across communities, cultures and faiths.Accounts will be analyzed to inform on two aspects of the project - what are the different traditions with food that relate to how people regard environmental messages? And how does the presence of a herbal probe in the life of a household impact on interest and engagement in environmentally sustainable practices?