School Food Gardens Open Career Horizons

Allison Eady from Waterloo Region School Food Gardens talks about garden-based learning and introducing students to the food chain.

Garden-based learning: Growing seeds, growing communication skills, opening career horizons.

The Wateroo Region School Food Gardens project has built 35 school gardens, touching 20,000 students in this region of Ontario.

Allison Eady, program co-ordinator, explains that it provides information and curriculum ideas to educators, grants for school gardens, and direct programming for youth.

Garden-Based Learning

Eady sees school gardens as an opportunity for teaching more than gardening. She says garden-based lessons can be used for many subjects, including art, math, and science.

Launch a School Garden

“The best chance for success is when there’s a network of people who support it,” says Eady as she talks about successful school gardens.

She says it’s important to find allies in the community, whether it’s organizations or community members. That’s because school populations change fairly quickly: kids (and parents) move on, and staff are shuffled between schools. That makes the stability of community support important for the long-term success of a school garden.

Eady says not to worry about being a garden expert when starting a school garden. “It’s about figuring it all out together,” she says.

Youth Programming

During the COVID pandemic Waterloo Region School Gardens has pivoted to provide more direct programming for youth, including career mentorship and student-run markets.

Another initiative helps youth explore food-related topics of interest to them. Youth research a topic, and then create blog posts or videos to teach other youth, with the support of program staff. The video below is an example.