Provincial Government Responds to our Food Literacy Submission on Experiential Learning
Posted: June 27, 2016
Categories: Edible Education Network / GoodFoodBites / News from Sustain Ontario / Policy News / Schools
Sustain Ontario’s Edible Education Network has received a response from the Government of Ontario regarding our submission to the province’s consultation of the Future of Experiential Learning in Ontario schools — an effort to provide students with a broader range of learning opportunities that are “connected to the community”.
To help inform the development of this policy for Ontario schools, we took this consultation period as an opportunity to push for good food education as an integral part of that broader, experiential learning. Read our submission to the Ministry of Education in full here.
The response from the province begins:
“Your feedback has provided amazing examples of innovative experiential learning opportunities with connections to curriculum expectations as well as global competencies, such as critical thinking, problem-solving and creativity, with a wide array of community partners.”
Specifically, our submission highlighted the invaluable skills built through school gardens, cooking classes, and other food literacy initiatives that many of our members focus on, encouraging the government to take a whole-school approach to healthy eating and to ensure that food literacy opportunities are firmly established within all schools.
“To learn from organizations like yours, and educators, this year we have invested over $450,000 to fund 78 experiential learning projects,” part of the response reads. “These projects will help to inform the development of the final policy for community-connected experiential learning. Many of these projects are food-related. For example, in one instance students will research, design, create, plant, maintain and harvest an organic vegetable garden. They will work with a local eatery to learn how to use the fresh produce and herbs to create healthy meals.”
View the full response from the Ministry of Education here.
Sustain Ontario and the Ontario Edible Education Network are very pleased to hear that our Provincial Government understands the importance of good food skills and the power of food literacy initiatives to educate youth. We are eager to see the development of this policy as it is released over the next couple of years, and hopeful that further steps will be taken toward implementing food literacy opportunities in all of our schools.