Friday, March 29, 2024

Resource links kids and food

Avatar photo
Using children’s inquiring minds to promote their interest in food, where it comes from and possible careers in farming and the primary industries is the way a new teaching aid works. Similarly, it doesn’t prescribe what or how teachers should teach but enables them to find appropriate and credible information. It also confronts them with the challenges the sector faces. Richard Rennie took a crash course.
Reading Time: 3 minutes

As the new school year kicks off many children are likely to end the year with a far better understanding of where the food in their lunch boxes comes from. 

A fledgling teaching initiative provides the answers for children asking where their food come from.

At the same time it introduces agriculture as a career path.

Funded by the Ministry of Primary Industries’ Sustainable Farming Fund, the Soil, Food and Society teaching resource brings together many aspects of the food sector from where food comes from and the role of primary production in New Zealand to the challenges the sector now faces. 

In each area an elevation in complexity is dealt with by primary and intermediate children learning in years five to eight.

Springett’s educational services company ReGear Learning has been instrumental in putting together the components of the course, the genesis of which lies in the Government’s aim to build skills and capacity in the primary sector.

It is an aim with an increasing amount of urgency if the sector is to get anywhere near achieving the much touted National government’s goal of doubling export value by 2025.

The pre-NCA years in school are where such a course most easily fits into a school’s curriculum. They are also formative years where exposure to a resource that contains varied threads of science, social studies, maths and English will have most affect.

“We wanted something that was not overly simplified. From year five children can approach the study over three years, with each year graduating upwards in terms of the complexity of the questions and challenges they are tasked with completing,” Springett said.

The open education learning resource has three key stages. The first starts with the theme Plants are earth’s engine. Students are required to answer a Big Question from that topic, such as how can you show plants are alive? 

Through questions like these, Springett says the concept of having a hypothesis, testing it, reviewing it and writing it up are all instilled from the start.

By the third year students in years seven and eight will be looking harder at the role of food production in society, the complexities of farming and the environment and the impact of processing on food value, health and economies.

“By that third year students are ready to answer harder questions like what makes food old. Part of this inquiry is about understanding good scientific questioning. 

“They may then do a study of their lunchbox, ageing the food in it, creating a statistical table that determines the food miles of their lunch box and the processing of the food in it.” 

A key focus of the open learning platform is to integrate with other curriculum subjects and Springett sees it as something a school could adopt and focus on for six weeks of the year across the three levels, if desired. Teachers are also free to add in their own elements and experiences to the resource’s core content.

“This might include a visit to a farm nearby or possibly starting a class vegetable garden, tracking its progress and linking it to the contents.”

Springett emphasises the wheel has not been re-invented with Soil, Food and Society.

Instead, the resource recognises the challenge for modern teachers is not sourcing information, which a simple Google search will do, but it is determining which information is the most valid and useful to them and students.

“There is stuff everywhere. What they need is to know what the good stuff is for teaching and using that to instil useful knowledge. 

“We see the resource as something of a Qual-mark for good information.”

So when it comes to setting up a class garden, the resource directs teachers to a site run by the Young Enterprise Trust where the template for a good garden installation already exists.

Nor is it aiming to teach teachers how to suck eggs.

“We can see this course appealing to teachers who may already be science teachers and have been for some time and are looking for a bit of invigoration and inspiration to their teaching process. 

“We don’t tell them how to do it but, instead, direct them to resources they may want to use.”

So far half a dozen schools have shown interest in starting the year with Soil Food and Society after almost 50 teachers tried the first version of the programme and gave it a critical once over and a salutary thumbs up.

With funding limited until mid-2018, Springett and his colleagues are hoping the traction it is likely to gain with teachers and students will also draw in more financial support. 

“If we are starting with the statement that NZ is a food producer for the world, kids can become very interested and we have overwhelmingly positive teacher support – it adds up to a very convincing programme that will pay dividends for years to come.”

Total
0
Shares
People are also reading