ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the application of living systems principles to the design of community eating practices at a residential environmental education center. By drawing upon the living systems principles of networks, nested systems, cycles, flow, development, and dynamic balance to inform meal design and practice, educators can promote communities that embody nature’s processes for sustaining life. Participation in such communities enables a vibrant, profoundly meaningful learning experience. Educators can intentionally design meals in which living systems principles can be experienced with the head, heart, hands, and spirit. By empowering learners to co-create and embody the conditions that sustain life, we transmit to children the consciousness they will need to confront the serious ecological challenges facing them. The author builds on the work of living systems scholar Dr. Fritjof Capra, whose research on the relationship of social structures to ecoliteracy opens up new pathways and possibilities in environmental education.
