Students will interview various members of the school community, including cafeteria staff and peers, to identify the core needs and challenges related to food waste, initiating their understanding of the logistics and preparing them to craft impactful solutions.

Students will articulate the food waste issue at their middle school by synthesizing insights from their empathy work and identifying key challenges and opportunities for improvement, preparing to explore innovative solutions.

Students will collaboratively brainstorm and propose diverse, creative solutions to reduce food waste, building on their understanding from previous phases by synthesizing ideas and visualizing plans to share with community partners.

Students will create low-fidelity prototypes of their food waste reduction plans using sketches and mock-ups, integrating feedback from community partners for practical solutions, and collaboratively refine ideas to present effective, realistic strategies for testing.

Students will present their food waste reduction plans to the site principal and food services director, gather feedback from them, and refine their prototypes using insights from community partners and stakeholders to enhance the project's practical application towards minimizing waste at school.