On 19 April, the student teams in the Urban Leisure & Tourism Lab Amsterdam started again with the new challenges in the last period of this school year. For example, Olivier Francescangeli, a researcher at Wageningen university, has brought the issue of ‘Food For Purpose Grant’ to our students. What choices do people in the city, and in particular Amsterdam-Noord, make with regard to food? Do they know where it came from? And how do you get food when you’re short on money? The ULT-lab student team will work on making people aware of food in the future and the role of the city by developing an ‘Urban food concept’.
Positive Provocation: ‘Sally the Shrimp’
Another student team will also work for our partner SAIL and build on the results of the previous team. In period 3, ULT-lab students have discovered that the discharge and collection of ballast water has an effect on the environment and can lead to all kinds of problems. To make people aware of this, they came up with a positive provocation concept ‘Sally the Shrimp’.
The ULT-lab and SAIL find ballast water an interesting theme to continue on, but this time from a different perspective. The focus for period 4 should be on how we can positively provoke other stakeholders (think ship owners, Daamen shipyards, the port of Amsterdam containing the cruise terminal, municipality of Amsterdam, North Sea Canal municipalities, Royal Navy) and make them aware of ballast water.
Making young people aware of the impact of drug use
The Public Prosecutor’s Office is a new partner who has joined the ULT lab. They too have brought in a challenging challenge: drug use among young people. Ecstasy use leads to major problems, not only for the users themselves but also the criminal and social impact is great. In April, the ULT lab student will be briefed by the police and the judiciary about the consequences of this problem. Our team is asked to come up with creative ways to make young people aware of the impact and trigger them not to use.
We wish the UL-lab – teams good luck!