Taste of Place Virtual Discover Centers

A Taste of Place Virtual Discovery Center (ToP VDC) is a locally curated, place-based learning environment, grounded in local knowledge and supported by professional design, mapping, and editorial standards.

are a proposed network of richly detailed interactive websites created by and for host communities to document, interpret, and share the food and farming landscapes they care for. They are designed to help residents, educators, and visitors better understand what makes a region’s food system distinctive—and why that distinctiveness is worth sustaining. We envision a global network of A Taste of Place Virtual Discovery Centers (ToP VDCs) in the future to establilsh shared discovery and curatorial good practices.

AI-generated example of a ToP VDC landing page for Maines Blueberry Barrens

Local contributors do not need to be writers or technologists. In addition to the template platform, the ToP Project team works with a local facilitator who, in turn, supports leaders in the community to document what matters and what is accurate, and how this can be creatively shared with the world.

What the Discovery Center Includes

Using the Taste of Place platform template, the Virtual Discovery Center is tailored to its region, but typically includes:

Story Maps that connect people, land, and livelihood - Plain-language explanations of history, ecology, and change
An interactive map linking farms, food producers, and ecological features.
Show casing signature foods and crops shaped by local conditions (e.g., via traditional recipes, vintage and current photos for comparison)

Together, these elements create a shared resource that can be used in classrooms, community conversations, planning efforts, and public education.

Why Communities Would Choose to Participate

Communities will want to host a Discovery Center to:

Preserve knowledge that risks being lost.
Strengthen local food and farming identity.
Support education and intergenerational learning.
Create a common reference point for planning and decision-making.

Rather than telling a single story, the Discovery Center makes space for multiple (evolving) voices within a shared, place-based framework.

What Makes This Approach Different

Unlike static websites, a Virtual Discovery Center is designed to be regularly curated so that it grows and evolves over time. Content can be updated as conditions change, new stewards step forward, and new questions emerge. Each Center follows shared design standards, making it easy to compare regions while preserving local voice.

A Shared Investment

Hosting a Virtual Discovery Center is an investment in local knowledge as a public good. A Taste of PlaceProgram provides the framework. The community provides the knowledge, meaning, and long-term commitment that bring the Discovery Center to life.

A (Inter)National Network of Discovery Centers?

Ultimately, we envision a network of Taste of Place Discovery Centers and a facilitator/curator community of practice, in which local host facilitators can share ideas, resources, and good practices.

We are Currently Seeking Pilot Projects

Taste of Place VDC program is just in its conceptual phase, and we are seeking to collaborate with a well-known region to provide a proof of concept. As such a region will:

provide a host organization that can offer leadership, administrative support, and champion the project in the region, and is willing to patiently assist in building the prototype platform.
partner with the Lyson Center to secure financial sponsor to support the pilot project, including a .25 FTE local independent consultant or host organization staff person who will provide local coordination/facilitation and work with Lyson Center.

As a partner on the project, the Lyson Center will:

take the lead in securing the resources to underwrite the cost of the ToP VDC platform design template.
co-facilitate the entire ToP VDC process.
conduct a formal evaluation of the project including process and outcomes.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT Duncan Hilchey, Co-Director of the Lyson Center for Civic Agriculture and Food Systems: duncan@lysoncenter.org

What Hosting a Virtual Discovery Center Means

Many regions in North America have vast reservoirs of Indigenous and local knowledge. For a host community, a Discovery Center is a way to bring together stories, knowledge, and data that already exist—but are often scattered across farms, families, archives, schools, and organizations. Farmers, fishers, field and food workers, historians, educators, and other local stewards help shape the content, ensuring it reflects lived experience and long-term responsibility to the land.