Local food and growing projects with schools & young people
There is a huge range of creative work that can be undertaken with schools and young people around food, both within and outside of formal education. Below are project ideas with links to resources to help you get started:
Provide practical education through cooking & growing clubs:
- Skool Beanz is an inspiring growing club for children and also offers training to others who want to start growing. See our growing resources below.
- Project Food offers a range of cooking activities for children and families in South Somerset.
- Wedmore Village Farm and the Food Forest Project have set up a market garden and supply a local school with vegetable boxes. They are also establishing a garden kitchen to enable healthy cooking activities for families.
Also:
- Schools can participate in the Food for Life partnership, an awards scheme with a framework for schools on linking school meals with growing and cooking, farm visits and community engagement. They offer support to school staff who are creating school gardens and improving school meals, and farmers who want to host educational visits.
- Support families to access affordable local veg by starting a food cooperative.
- Improving local procurement for school meals, e.g. the Food Links project in Dorset.
Further information & resources on growing
- Somerset Gardens Trust provides small grants for school gardens annually
- Future Gardeners - information for growing with children, regular forum and newsletter
- Food4Families - different resources, including growing guides
- Growing Schools Teachers Resource Pack
Here is our resource pack - Food growing activities with children and young people. It will help you to develop initial ideas and make decisions before you start growing. There is plenty of advice about the practicalities of setting up a growing area and what to grow, as well as ways to evaluate and celebrate your successes.
- Advice for growing crops in containers
- Suitable varieties for containers
- Make your own reservoir container worksheet
- How to grow pea shoots
- How to sprout beans and seeds
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This resource is timeless, but a few of the contacts / links may now be out of date, so please contact us if you need any additional information.
