Local Food Literacy in Schools – Answers to Common Questions
Posted: December 5, 2017
Categories: Edible Education Network / GoodFoodBites / News from Sustain Ontario / Schools / Sustain Ontario Publications
“How do I get my students excited and engaged in local food literacy?” “How do I help my students navigate a grocery store, including how to buy local and how to shop cost effectively?” “How can I make local food literacy with my school garden manageable?”
These questions and many others are summarized in the new Local Food Literacy in Ontario Schools FAQ Guide that has been developed by Sustain Ontario in collaboration with partners Ecosource, FoodShare and Roots to Harvest.
The FAQ document aims to help school food champions find answers to common questions that they may experience while providing local food literacy in schools and draws from our Local Food Literacy in Schools webinars as well as our partners’ years of experience providing local food literacy in school settings.
The other questions that the FAQ document addresses are:
- How can I deal with the mismatch between the growing season and the school year? In September when school starts I need to teach basic cooking and growing skills with new students but it’s also harvest time.
- How can I set up a trip to a farm that has an educational component?
- How can I source locally grown foods for my school?
- Are there examples of cafeterias that are using more local foods in their menus and/or involving education in their mandate?
- What can I do to reduce the risks and fears of our health department relating to eating food that we grow or that we get direct from farmers?
- How can my school get started on shifting its whole school food culture?
- How can I find good quality ready-to-use lesson plans and resources to teach local food literacy to my class across a wide range of subjects?