Pilot Light

Program Type: 
School Cafeterias, Academic Classrooms
Grade Level/Age Group: 
Kindergarten, Lower Elementary, Upper Elementary, Middle School, High School
Number of Individuals Program Serves: 
6,000
Year Founded: 
2010
About the Program: 

Mission
Pilot Light’s mission is to support teachers in creating food-based classroom lessons that support children with the knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and skills they need to have healthy relationships with food. To do that, Pilot Light has developed a cohesive model for classroom food education, incorporating food as a lens for traditional subjects, such as Math, Reading, History, and Science in K-12 classrooms.

Vision
To equip children to make healthier choices throughout their lives by providing access to quality food, engaging lesson plans, and transformative ideas.

About our program
The Pilot Light Instructional Model is designed to inspire students to make more informed food choices. Teachers integrate Pilot Light food education lessons into core-curriculum such as Reading, Math, Science, and Social Studies to further academic outcomes through food while students are also learning about food. Pilot Light lessons are developed by teachers, often in collaboration with chefs, and are aligned to Common Core Standards, Next Generation Science Standards, and the Food Education Standards, released by Pilot Light in September 2019. The Pilot Light model engages students in the classroom and guides them to make connections between the classroom, their peers, the home, and the community through the lens of food.

Our program is made up of the following:

  • The Food Education Fellowship: a cohort of highly-motivated K-12-grade teachers in Chicago with an interest in implementing Pilot Light food education lessons consistently in their classrooms and supported with Pilot Light resources while helping to refine and evaluate food education in classrooms

  • The Food Education Center: a large K-12 lesson and resource library that makes it easy to integrate food education into existing curricula and to inspire your students’ curiosity while promoting a healthy relationship with food. Open for teachers across the country to use and available at: https://foodedu.pilotlightchefs.org

    For more information about Pilot Light contact us at info@pilotlightchefs.org and/or visit our website at: https://pilotlightchefs.org/