Healthy Mind, Healthy Body – Victorian Education Week

With the celebration of Education Week in Victoria from 21 - 27 May, it’s a great time to reflect on and consider how having a kitchen garden program in your school can support lifelong learning outcomes within the week’s theme: ‘Healthy Mind, Healthy Body’.

Through participating in pleasurable food education students get an active, hands-on opportunity to learn directly about where their food comes from, and engage with the entire food production process. They design their gardens in line with climatic, seasonal and local knowledge, and plant, nurture and harvest their own crops of fruit, vegetables and herbs.

Students then learn what to do with their fresh produce through preparing a range of delicious seasonal dishes that they share with their peers as well as their adult helpers. They learn fundamental cooking techniques – how to make fresh produce taste great – as well as vital skills such as teamwork and sharing, and the connectedness that celebrating good, authentic, homemade food brings.

When students are actively engaged in learning about their food and food environments they experience first-hand how and why good food is so important for the health of their minds, brains and bodies. Getting outside, exploring the garden, breathing fresh air, connecting with nature and using all their senses, supports wellbeing and simultaneously expands the traditional four walls of the classroom. Similarly, entering a home-style kitchen space, smelling, tasting, investigating textures and taking pride in a well-presented dish – these are all elements that foster individual as well as group wellbeing.

Access to good food is critical for fuelling hungry bodies and minds for learning during the school day. Fresh, nutritious food is sustaining and vital to supporting growth through childhood and adolescent developmental stages, continued brain function and to aid the nutritional requirements we need to stay healthy and well. Food is the ultimate connector that brings us together, unites us and cultivates community. But we all know kids won’t eat it if it doesn’t taste good …

As educators, unfortunately we are all too aware of the reality: many children are consuming overly processed, high-density, low-nutrition foods for breakfast (or none at all), are coming to school with unrecognisable food ‘products’ that are purchased packaged off the shelf and have no links to a garden (or no food at all). Often they have learnt food behaviours that revolve around what appears to be convenient rather than what is good, or good for them. They lack motivation around understanding food and what benefits good food can bring, and lack the energy they need to concentrate and learn throughout the day.

This is where your kitchen garden program can assist – in helping students to form positive food habits for life.

Depending on the state or territory you are in, consider tying in the learning that is achievable through your kitchen garden program during Education Week (when it arrives in your region). This is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate your students’ learning successes together, within a shared garden experience, or a great meal. It’s also an ideal time to showcase the links your kitchen garden program has to healthy mind and body outcomes. And if you haven’t started your kitchen garden program yet, there’s no better time like the present!

Visit the Victorian Department of Education and Training’s website to find out more about the ‘Healthy Mind, Healthy Body’ theme, including a host of kitchen garden program resources.

Note : State and Territory Education Weeks are not necessarily held at consistent times throughout Australia; stay tuned for updates specific to your region.