You may have seen the Lexicon of Sustainability images. Ames High School environmental science teacher saw them and curated a pop-up art show with his students for the local community in Ames, Iowa. Students realized how important it was to feature images of local farms–and with Lexicon co-creator Douglas Gayeton, began to map their local food system and hack the Lexicon of Sustainability to localize the project. The Ames High School project led to a student trip to Washington, DC to present their work to the U.S. Department of Agriculture–students were invited to participate in a Farm Bill meeting.

Gayeton observed:

When students complete Project Localize, they are no longer just passive recipients of information. They become artists, historians, activists and journalists.

Lexicon of Sustainability’s Project Localize now supports a network of 25 schools to do their own localization projects. (They’re looking for schools to participate.)

Read more background here and listen to a story by Harvest Public Media.

Thanks to Nathanael Johnson for surfacing it in his column in Grist.