Secondary schools sprouting kitchen garden programs

This article originally appeared in the May – Nov 2017 edition of Education Matters Secondary magazine.

Australian secondary schools are digging into food education and introducing kitchen garden programs and activities into their curriculum.

With support from the not-for-profit Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation, secondary schools are teaching food education in a wide variety of ways.

Some schools, such as Melbourne’s Cranbourne East Secondary College, are developing kitchen gardens where students can grow produce to be used in Food Technology and Home Economics classes. Others are using kitchen gardens as alternative learning spaces for subjects such as English, art, science and maths.

Schools are also using their kitchen gardens as spaces to help students who find the traditional classroom setting challenging, including students with special needs or behavioural disorders.

More than 800 primary schools are running the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program. Some of these are feeder schools, and their secondary counterparts are realising the importance of continuing the vital food education these students have been learning.

The Kitchen Garden Foundation’s new Kitchen Garden Classroom membership has enabled secondary schools to access the Foundation’s wealth of knowledge, professional development, resources, support and online community of kitchen garden educators.

Melbourne’s Doncaster Secondary College recently joined as a member of the Foundation’s Kitchen Garden Classroom, and are just beginning their pleasurable food education journey.

The school already has a vegetable garden that contains raised and vertical garden beds, and a sensory garden. The garden also incorporates art and seating created by Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL) students at the school.

Produce grown in the school’s garden is being used by students of Food Technology and Outdoor Education in their cooking classes. And the garden space has been used by the school’s student welfare staff as a quiet place to speak to students.

Simon Cross, who is the school’s Arts and Technology Learning Area Leader, said the school hopes to widen the use of the school garden this year.

He said the school also hopes to incorporate kitchen garden learning into a broader range of subjects across the curriculum, and the teaching faculty has many exciting ideas about how to do that.

“I thought the best thing was to sign up (for the Kitchen Garden Classroom membership) and get the ball rolling from there,” he said.

Simon said the garden provided fantastic opportunities to link to the arts curriculum, and they had some interesting projects lined up for the year.

“We’re doing a sculpture for the garden made out of old colanders from the school’s industrial kitchen,” he said.

“And Year 10 students are making ceramic fruit and vegetables that will decorate a totem pole for the garden. They’ve made fantastic dragon fruit, pomegranates and lemons.”

Doncaster Secondary also runs a program called MYSELF (Middle Years Selected Essential Learning for the Future) in Year 9, which provides many options for linking kitchen garden learning and the curriculum.

The MYSELF program runs one day a week, and involves students undertaking real-world learning. The program includes a My Bakery class where students learn hands-on cooking skills.

Simon said the school’s canteen, known as the Doncaster Café, is undergoing a renovation to make it look more like a café, with the refurbishment offering an opportunity in the future to incorporate produce from the school’s garden into the menu.

GS Kidd Memorial School – a special school in Gunnedah, New South Wales – is running a more structured Kitchen Garden Program with their students.

Kitchen Garden Coordinator Kim Gibson said they ran weekly garden classes with the students in their senior classes, who are aged 12–18. She said the garden was also used by junior and intermediate students, aged four–12, during leisure time and for curriculum-linked activities.

Kim said all students at the school also take part in weekly cooking classes.

“It’s great when children can go out and pick something from the garden and then cook it. Everyone gets a kick out of it,” she said.

Kim said the garden was also used as a stress-free zone for students who were finding the classroom challenging, and needed some time out.

She said environmental education was a priority at the school.  The students had helped complete a study into waste management at the school, which resulted in a compost system being developed and posters made about reducing waste.

“The Kitchen Garden Program is covering outcomes across the curriculum all the time. It’s great, it’s integrated into everything,” she said.

• The Foundation’s first book for secondary schools – Kitchen Garden Education for the Secondary Years: Connecting to the Curriculum (Book 1) – is available now in our online shop.
• To find out how your school, or early years centre, can dig into pleasurable food education head to our Kitchen Garden Classroom membership page.
• If you are in Victoria, check out the Victorian Pleasurable Food Education Package, which is supported by the Victorian Department of Education and includes a bundle of discounted professional development, educational resources, membership and support.
• Any questions? Call our friendly Support Team on 13000 SAKGF (13000 72543).