Healthier Ground reveals where unhealthy food environments persist and helps student leaders, organizers, and nonprofits take targeted action to create healthier food landscapes.
A student-built project exploring how local food environments shape everyday choices. It brings together simple data tools and early pilot work to help communities see patterns that are often difficult to notice at street level.
Healthier Ground is exploring whether tools like SnackMap can be adapted for use in other communities without losing local context.
Rather than scaling quickly, we have focused on small pilots. Current efforts include supporting students at other schools who are building localized versions of SnackMap, and hosting information and learning sessions.
The goal is to learn what translates well, what needs adjustment, and what should remain community-specific.
SnackMap is tailored to each individual community.
Support students in other schools and communities.
Document what works and what doesn't, and revise.
Students are building a localized version of SnackMap to explore their community's food environment.
Educational events focused on nutrition and food science, exploring how data tools can support student learning.
These pilots are currently in the works — more documentation coming as work progresses.
Right now, we're limited to California, but if you want to expand SnackMap to your area or host a lunch and learn, we'd be interested to speak with people in other states who want to expand this work.
Healthier Ground is intentionally small and exploratory. At this stage, it includes:
This site documents progress as it happens, rather than presenting finished conclusions.