"Media Education and Big Food" Tool Kit

For Immediate Release
Friday, October 7, 2005

October Is Food For Thought!

ACME and Rural Vermont Offer FREE "Media Education and Big Food" Tool Kit To All Interested Teachers

The Action Coalition for Media Education continues its 2005-2006 "Monthly Media Education" resource offerings with their "ACME Food For Thought Tool Kit", a FREE downloadable resource detailing a wide variety of ways health, language arts, history, civics, social studies and journalism teachers can use media education to focus on a host of food-related matters: obesity, nutrition, health, corporate power, agriculture - of vital importance to all of the globe's citizens today.

In producing the tool kit, ACME partnered with Vermont-based "Rural Vermont" (http://www.ruralvermont.org), a nonprofit farm advocacy group representing those who are opposed to corporate industrial agriculture and committed to supporting a strong rural economy that is environmentally sustainable and economically just. "Big Media and Big Food enjoy a very cozy relationship, one which runs counter to the interests of food-loving citizens in a democracy," explains Rural Vermont's Amy Shollenberger. "We are pleased to offer a multimedia tool kit that offers a unique and inter-disciplinary approach to media and food-related issues, using media education as a way of deepening our understanding of the Media/Food relationship."

The "Food For Thought" tool kit includes:

1. An introduction to understanding the relationship between Big Media and Big Food

2. A variety of K-12 media education classroom activities for adaptation in your classroom or community.

3. A multimedia resource guide - featuring the very best print, film, and multimedia resources related to media and food.

4. A Vermont-specific list of organizations working on providing healthier "food" for both mind and body.

"What's exciting about our "Food For Thought" tool kit is that English speakers anywhere on the planet can, with a little bit of tweaking, make the tool kit work for their classrooms or communities, simply by building their own local list of organizations committed to a more just and equitable approach to food and then re-copying the tool kit for re-distribution," explains ACME Board president Rob Williams. "We designed "Food For Thought" to be easily adaptable at a global level."

ACME and Rural Vermont have co-applied for a grant to fund statewide distribution of the tool kit, and an accompanying multi-media DVD. "It's an exciting prospect - using media education to teach people about creating healthier and more local alternatives to Big Food," says Shollenberger.

For a FREE download of the "Food For Thought" Tool Kit, visit ACME's home page: http://www.acmecoalition.org

For more information about "Rural Vermont," visit http://www.ruralvermont.org or call 802.223.7222.