Food Education and Curriculum Resources
Harvest of the Month
Each month, a locally-grown fruit or vegetable is featured on the school lunch menu and educational materials are provided for students, teachers, and parents. Harvest of the Month provides an educational opportunity to encourage healthy choices and talk about where our food comes from. It also allows food service staff to experiment with preparing and serving local produce. This can involve finding a local farm to procure the product, trying new recipes, and doing taste tests in the cafeteria.
Some schools highlight their Harvest of the Month item on a single day of the month, and others feature it multiple times. Harvest of the Month connects the cafeteria, classroom, school garden, and community in learning about and sharing food that grows in our region.
The Whatcom Harvest of the Month program is available (and can easily be adopted) by any district in the Northwest.
WSDA’s Farm to School Toolkit provides a range of Harvest of the Month materials and resources to help schools in Washington State promote their efforts to students and families. WSDA’s Harvest Posters highlight seasonal Washington fruits and vegetables and are available for download, and their WA Grown Food Kit offers information, recipes, sample menus, and nutrition facts.
Recommended Harvest of the Month materials from other counties and states include:
- King County – Seattle Public Schools Harvest of the Month
- California Harvest of the Month
- Oregon Harvest for Schools
- Vermont Harvest of the Month
Taste Tests
Research has shown that children need to try a new food twelve times or more before they decide that they like it. Taste tests are a way to give children an opportunity to try new foods, introduce new menu items, and encourage healthy food choices. Some school districts do taste tests in conjunction with the Harvest of the Month program to highlight the monthly fruit or vegetable and incorporate educational resources.
- A Guide to Taste Testing, Vermont FEED, 2010
- Tips for Hosting a Successful Taste Test, Action for Healthy Kids
- Try It, You’ll Like It! The Benefits of Taste Testing, Michigan
School Gardens
USDA supports school gardens as a proven tactic for improving children’s attitudes and consumption of produce, and for incorporating experiential nutrition and agriculture education into school curricula. Research that demonstrates positive impacts associated with school gardens has been compiled by the Collective School Garden Network, Kids Gardening, Slow Food USA, and the USDA School Garden Research.
- Getting Started: A Guide for Creating School Gardens as Outdoor Classrooms by Center for Ecoliteracy is a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to starting a school garden, from selecting and preparing a site, to raising funds, to involving stakeholders.
- The GREEN Tool for Well-Integrated School Gardens, Aug. 2016, is a research brief that maps key components needed to establish, integrate, and sustain a school garden. The study focuses on New York City schools, but much of the material is relevant to school gardens in general. Similar research about integrating and sustaining school gardens is being conducted in Seattle Schools starting in 2017.
- School Garden Project of Lane County, Amoreena Guerrero, a resource packet for garden educators focusing on gardening with students who have special needs. Includes: Increasing Inclusion in the School Garden, Growing Success with School Gardens, and On-site Composting at Schools.
- School Gardens: Using Gardens to Grow Healthy Habits in Cafeterias, Classrooms, and Communities, USDA Fact Sheet, June 2016, provides a brief overview of what is involved in starting a school garden.
- Starting and Maintaining Your Garden, Slow Food USA resources that include a literature review, comprehensive School Garden Guide, funding information, and examples of garden signage.
- Gardens in Tribal Communities, USDA Fact Sheet, March 2017, offers case examples of tribal communities using gardens for educating students about traditional foods and healthy eating.
- Youth Farm Stands Toolkit, Slow Food Denver, 2017, explains the process of planning, marketing, pricing, and evaluating a Youth Farm Stand to sell produce from school gardens and/or local farms in school neighborhoods.
- Food Safety Tips for School Gardens, University of Mississippi, 2016. Includes food safety practices that will help garden coordinators and nutrition program operators enhance the safety of fruits and vegetables grown in school gardens
Curriculum Resources
- Ag in the Classroom Curriculum Matrix – National Organization for Agriculture in the Classroom offers an extensive list of agriculture-related lesson plans and other resources organized by grade level.
- Dig In! from USDA’s Team Nutrition: Ten inquiry-based lessons that engage 5th and 6th graders in growing, harvesting, tasting, and learning about fruits and vegetables.
- Eat Together Eat Better from WSU: Educational materials focusing on family meals. Resources support nutrition, parent, and youth educators in teaching the importance of family meals in setting healthy roots for a lifetime.
- Farm to School Knowledge Base for Educators from FoodHub: A list of farm to school educational resources organized by grade level.
- Farm to School Lesson Plans from Growing Minds: Farm to school activities that incorporate national curriculum standards for different grade levels.
- Farm to School Youth Leadership Curriculum from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy: Designed to empower 11th and 12th grade youth, teach them about their local food system, engage them in meaningful, hands-on learning activities that also strengthen their school’s farm to school program, and link them directly with farmers in their community.
- Fish to Schools a classroom guide for “stream to plate” unit lesson plans.
- Food is Elementary from the Food Studies Institute: 28 age-appropriate lesson plans for pre-K through 2nd grade and 3rd grade through 8th grade. The participatory one-hour lessons integrate art, geography, history, language arts, writing, mathematics, and science and encourage students to engage all their senses while they study whole foods, nutrition and cooking.
- Food Span: Teaching the Food System from Farm to Fork, by Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, is a free downloadable high school curriculum that teaches students about critical food system issues, how to make healthy food choices, and become advocates for food system change.
- GOOD: Enjoying the pleasures of healthy and delicious food, by Slow Food USA & Gigia Kolouch, 2014, is a school garden curriculum for grades K-5 that presents lessons in sensory education and cooking skills.
- CLEAN: Enjoying the pleasures of healthy and delicious food for grades K & up, by Slow Food USA & Gigia Kolouch, 2015, presents school garden lessons as well as recipes and instructions for cooking in the classroom. Both GOOD & CLEAN are designed to help teachers meet Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards in multiple subject areas.
- The Great Garden Detective Adventure from USDA’s Team Nutrition: An 11-lesson curriculum for 3rd and 4th grades includes bulletin board materials, veggie dice, fruit and vegetable flash cards, and ten issues of Garden Detective News for parents/caregivers.
- The Growing Classroom from UC Santa-Cruz: A garden based Science and Nutrition curriculum for 2nd through 6th grades published by the National Gardening Association.
- The Edible Schoolyard Network: Educational resources for the garden classroom, kitchen classroom, academic classroom, and cafeteria, organized by type, grade level, and season.
- Sustainable Agriculture Resources and Programs for K-12 Youth from Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education: A guide to sustainable agriculture-oriented educational programs and curricula that includes direct links as well as program contact information.
- Teaching the Food System from the John Hopkins Center for a Livable Future offers a curriculum for 9th-12th graders comprised of 11 classroom-ready modules that help educators deliver compelling lessons with minimal preparation.
Farm Field Trips
- Farm Field Trip Toolkit for Teachers – Created by Willamette Farm & Food Coalition, 2016. Lists 12 important steps to a successful farm field trip and appendices that include a sample schedule, pre and post field trip lessons, and prep checklist.
- How to Make a Local Farm a Classroom for a Day, a Fact Sheet by WSU King County Extension, offers tips and guidelines for organizing school field trips for students to learn about farming.
- Making the Farm Connection: A Guide to Field Trips for Farmers by Community Alliance with Family Farmers: A guide to planning and conducting farm visits for school groups, for farmers.
- The Hayride by Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project: A resource for educational farm field trips; includes guided questions for planning.
Nutrition Education
- Northwest Indian College Traditional Plants and Foods Program is a resource for learning about the traditional Northwest Coastal Indian diet. The Northwest Native Foods curriculum includes native foods principles, information on harvesting and cooking many foods, and the nutritional importance of a native foods diet.
Contact: - The Real Food Show is a 40-minute show produced and sponsored by the Community Food Co-op in Whatcom County, available to schools throughout the region. The show is designed to motivate and teach students to make healthy food and lifestyle choices. With comedy and circus arts, the show aims to increase nutrition and health knowledge while inspiring a positive change in attitudes, habits, and behaviors. Shows are available for school assemblies and events at reasonable and negotiable rates.
Contact: - WA State University Extension SNAP-Ed provides nutrition education and support of policies and practices that promote healthy lifestyles for low-income individuals and families. Education is delivered through hands-on lessons at sites where people live, learn, work, shop, and play. Interventions to improve the policies, systems and environment in these settings are aimed at improving the likelihood that program participants will make healthier food choices and be physically active. Program staff also work to connect local farms with schools and other institutions to increase access to healthy, locally produced food for SNAP participants.
Contact: - SNAP-Ed Library has over 150 nutrition education curricula and lesson plans as well as social marketing campaigns, evaluation tools, and other resources.
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