Tour after the networking workshop

Tour of Rhode Street after our networking workshop

Food Around the World

Food and families around the World: This was the great resource that was shown at our workshops that gives us some insight into family food expenditure and favourite foods – in 2 formats.

The food and families images within a suggested learning experience

http://efs.tki.org.nz/Curriculum-resources-and-tools/Food-and-families-Around-the-World

The original photos from Time

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1626519_1373680,00.html

.....which seem to come from this book......

Further sites that may have useful ideas and resources
http://www.nourishlife.org/ - this website has a range of resources to support our kaupapa - teacher guides, video clips, teaching and learning activities and stories about what different schools have done. There are a range of short video clips on food and communities (ones I thought might be useful in classes were Food Chain, Apple Seed). Also have a look at the teaching resources. The food systems area has examples of food cycles.


Great meals for a change is the website that the poster that we looked at in the network workshop. http://www.greatmealsforachange.ca/project-materials.php#tool-kit

http://www.greatmealsforachange.ca/userfiles/Sustainable-Food-Habit-Poster.jpg

Some of you are looking at who your community is, what defines it and the diversity within. Books to connect into a unit about Identity and Belonging:

The Tree by Bob Darroch

Hundreds of years ago a tiny seedling struggled for life in the New Zealand bush. Then, as chance would have it, a mighty giant fell and gave the little tree a chance for life. Through this beautifully illustrated story we follow the life of this tree as it, in turn, grows to be a mighty giant. Along the way, we see the changes to the landscape and the arrival of new creatures to the land where the tree first grew.

 With this book what you could do is adapt it to be something in your community that you tell the story of what ‘goes past’ each day and how together we all make up the wonderful fabric of our communities. It could be that for schools with a range of cultures that a ‘cultural’ meal for groupings is prepared under the tree and shared with all of the community that goes past….

Jeannie Baker has a wonderful series of textless picture books that work incredibly well in the context of Identity

http://www.jeanniebaker.com/picture_books_index.htm Belonging - perfect for looking at how community can come together to create spaces for everyone and everything.

This blog has an interesting commentary of Jeannie’s work that you might find interesting http://trevorcairney.blogspot.co.nz/2012/05/jeannie-baker-revisited.html

Her latest book Mirror is not one that I am familiar with but it sounds again like an interesting work that could be used within our setting – there is a left hand and right hand story tracking the lives of two boys one from Sydney and one from Morocco.

Laying down a challenge

One of the touchstones of this project is about being innovative and trying new things that haven’t been developed elsewhere in the Enviroschools network – pioneering is the word used on the MoU! At our latest meeting we talked about how we wanted participants in this project to try some new things.  Whether these are successful or not is part of our learning. An important post script to that statement is that what we try needs to sit within the project direction of developing innovative, action and learning projects.

The title of the project taking the next step points to challenging ourselves through this project to consider what is the next step in terms of the Enviroschools kaupapa. So for example we know that we can create wonderful gardens on site in our schools however, if we are taking the next step – what does that look like? Will all of our learning and action take place within the confines of the school site or will there be a merging of school and community other than on the school site? Growing food is challenging once we start looking at on-going supply. Therefore, how can we broaden our engagement and influence in a way that involves more people, participation and more places. In what ways can we explore alternative ways of accessing and sharing kai? Are we doing things that haven’t been tried/developed before through the Enviroschools network?

Sample Responses

Sample of responses to the questions that align with the project sponsors perspective

What does the project title of Enviroschools taking the next step: Sustainable Community through kai mean to you?

·        Taking what we do and developing our resources in our community to a more purposeful sustained way.

·        To make it an authentic need/action in our school

·        Working as one community to care for, share knowledge, skill and time to provide food and excess food for each other

·        The key as I see it is that collectively as a group of schools committed to the Enviroschools’ kaupapa, we are going to take that illusive “next step” and strive individually and corporately to create aspects of authentic sustainability in our schools and communities through the meaningful context of kai.  Schools do a great job of growing things but this next step is more than that and is like stepping up and taking our place in the world and making a difference locally and globally.  If everyone, everywhere focused their learning on how it can make a positive difference for others, then our world would be a much better and brighter place. 

·        Buy in from the community to ask – what if we can half our food bill? What if we can eat healthy food that we have grown ourselves?

·        Moving beyond what we know works within our schools for developing sustainable practices such as organic gardens to empowering others in and as part of our communities so that healthy nourishing food is accessible

·        How we bridge gaps and work with our community to see which parts of the food cycle we can influence or develop to be less energy demanding, more efficient in the use of resources, produced and accessed locally

·        Sharing what we have learnt in our school settings with and through our communities so that people in our communities are not hungry

What might be the benefits of this project long and short term?

Long term

·        Connections between community members and learning and sharing of knowledge

·        Life is not a throw away/consumable lifestyle

·        Enduring understanding – action and consequence we are all connected and need to be sustainable

·        Being well planned for next year

·        Learning to grow food bring new people in, empowering adults to have confidence to help the school

·        Inclusive community for all cultures

·        Sharing knowledge from all cultures

·        Short term – comfortably belonging to a community

·        Food for those who need it

·        Skill sharing

·        Conversation

·        Ako

·        become part of a school culture in all its dimensions

·        This project creates the conditions for looking beyond our individual schools and creating a learning community focusing on sustainability and changing practices at a school and at a community level. 

·        Contributing to action learning that will inform best practice through the Enviroschools foundation,

·        Creating sustainable change in schools and communities.

·        Developing students’ knowledge and understanding of creating, building and strengthening sustainable communities through kai.

·        Students driving school wide initiatives and developing leadership, practical and life long learning skills.

·        Parents, families and whanau developing knowledge and understanding of sustainability and taking active steps to make a difference too.

·        Re-connecting of communities to enable equitable and empowered learners and teachers

·        Good food available to all parts of our community

·        More people living, learning and earning in the community that they are in

·        Perhaps a shift in economics or the way that we think of ‘jobs’ that are valued, so that growing food or making food accessible to all is a role that is enabled by the community

Short term benefits include:

·        the development of a supportive cluster with a common professional learning focus,

·        positive networking across schools and areas,

·        the development of authentic learning contexts for students,

·        focused topic for inquiry,

·        strong level of support from facilitators,

·        more produce = healthier students

·        Re-defining who is a teacher and who is a learner

·        Ideas about how to make the lines between community and school less visible

·        Students living and learning in their community

Asphalt to Ecosystems

http://www.asphalt2ecosystems.org/home

This is one of the books that we looked at during our network afternoon.

Kitchen Garden Foundation

The Kitchen Garden Foundation began in Melbourne in 2001.

Stephanie Alexander has written some amazing cookbooks and some especially for working with children.

This cookbook is separated into seasons. 

It also reminds the children what ingredients they can get from their gardens.

Welcome

Welcome to this blog. We want it to be a place to share and inspire. This is where we started... Exploring Sustainable Communities Through Kai What is it about? The purpose of this project is to support schools to continue to develop the Enviroschools principle of Sustainable Communities through the context of kai/food. This project has been initiated by The Enviroschools Foundation in partnership with The Tindall Foundation and WWF. These three organisations are keen to see innovative, creative and future-focused schools and their communities learning together to enhance well-being and community spirit, and they believe that kai/food has an important role to play in making this happen. We want to work with ten teachers to explore some questions about food and communities. We want to support these teachers to undertake innovative food projects that energise us as learners and contributors in our community. We will then work together to analyse and document the learning process and share our findings with teachers in the wider Enviroschools network. Questions we are wondering about: · What can Enviroschools contribute to building community through teaching and learning that enables student and community action? · How can Enviroschools projects contribute to needs in our communities? Such as: - having healthy affordable food for our families? - creating local employment? - regenerating and learning from past food practices, in particular those used by tangata whenua? - celebrating our diversity of cultures? - reconnecting us with the land and our neighbours? · In what ways do Enviroschools projects connect teaching and learning with plans, initiatives and people that are also engaged in food projects locally and as a community? · How will our learning in Enviroschools continue to make the concept of sustainability an achievable reality? 2. Why be involved? Your school might already have school gardens, orchards or programmes about cooking and sharing kai. Or you could be starting out and have ideas you want to explore. Wherever you are on your journey, you might want to be involved if you are interested in the following: 1. Exploring the previous questions and bringing your own questions to answer; 2. Expanding your ideas about food projects and involving your students in a food project that has benefits for them and their community; 3. Having new learning opportunities for students and bringing meaningful contexts for literacy, numeracy and other areas of the curriculum; 4. Pushing the boundaries a bit and being supported to try something beyond what you have done before. 5. Having professional development and peer support while working with your students on a project. 3. What are the expected outcomes? As a research project supporting the use of the Pūnaha Akoako /Action Learning Cycle, a range of learning outcomes and actions will evolve through the process. We envisage the following project outcomes: · A diversity of school projects that show how sustainable communities have been strengthened through classes engaging in learning and action about kai/food. · A range of case studies and stories about the different ways classes have brought to life the Enviroschools principle of sustainable communities through kai/food, to be shared through the Enviroschools network and on the website. · Some recommendations that may guide others on how to bring to life the principle of sustainable communities in meaningful, practical and engaging ways. 4. What might happen in the project? The following table outlines key stages we currently envisage for the project. Timeline Project stage Sept 2012 Invitation to participate sent out to schools to read, discuss and pass on to teachers By Fri 28 Sept Schools Register interest to be part of the project. Oct 15th-19th Week 1 term 4 Follow-up with schools and further information provided. Check your email or phone messages, we will be in touch beginning of first week of Term 4 Selection process and successful participants notified 2 Nov 2012 1-day hui to further explore the project, share and clarify thinking and set a planning process for teaching in learning in 2013 in place Dec 2012 An afternoon sharing time with all project participants – what is the plan for 2013? 2013: Term 1 and 2 Undertake kai projects. Enviroschools facilitator working with classes using the Pūnaha Akoako /Action Learning Cycle and keeping a record of what happens July Term 2 One day hui to share experiences. Research data gathering surveys Term 3 Initial data collected Term 4 Final evaluation, sharing and celebration of learning and considering the findings 5. Roles and expectations The following outlines the roles and expectations of participants in order to ensure a successful project. Schools/Teachers (register your interest if you can commit to the following) · Involve at least one, preferably two teachers, in the project with support from school leadership (if a whole school wishes to participate that would be great, please advise when registering your interest) · Enable participant teachers to attend the project launch hui on 2 November 2012 and attend further hui/meetings throughout the project · Engage in the kai/food project as a major learning focus in term 1 and/or 2 of 2013 · Work with your Enviroschools facilitator to plan and implement a programme of learning using the Pūnaha Akoako /Action Learning Cycle to take action on an issue/project of interest · Share your project including possibly formal research and using cycles of inquiry and reflection to capture learning processes, challenges and celebrations that will enable others to learn The Enviroschools Foundation and Enviroschools Project Team will provide: · Professional learning and development in the Pūnaha Akoako /Action Learning Cycle · Support and training for participants as required in the Enviroschools kaupapa and ensuring appropriate practices are utilised when working with students · Teacher release negotiated to meet the demands of the project · Facilitator time to work with teachers and students to support the outcomes of the project · Templates and procedures useful for planning and reflection · Feedback and research findings to participants · Links to networks for building and understanding sustainable communities

Further thinking and exploring what if.....after our outdoor experience

What if…. we grew espaliered fruit trees and/or grapes on the north facing walls both inside the school and outwards?

What if… we grew vege ‘walls’ in our classrooms?

When would we eat the produce?

What if …. we had herbs spread throughout our school gardens for including in our cooking and for the smell?

What if… we developed a kumara growing area with our community?

What if …. we made worm farms out of recycled material and gave them to people in our community to use?

What if…. we investigated the possible ‘growing’ spaces within a 100 metre radius of our school and shared what we found out with the people that live in that space?

What if…. we investigated what we could see and find growing already within a 100 metre radius of our school and found out who was eating that food and which of it was being under utilised?

What if….we made hyper tufa pots for all of our community and gave them away with a vege or herb plant in them?

What if….we re-thought our fundraising products and used locally grown and produced items such as dried strawberries?

What if....?

What if…. families were able to source their food locally? ·       Where could you go to get your supplies? ·       How could students contribute? ·       Who else could be involved in your community? ·       What would need to change?

What if….. the food for a school celebration was grown by the community? ·       How could students and staff plan for this? ·       Who could be involved? ·       How would you share the responsibility and growing needs around the community? ·       What would need to be done?

What if….we used traditional methods to help nurture our bodies? ·       What health and wellbeing issues are important to our community? ·       Who could help us learn about these ways?

What if ….. people on the same street worked together to provide food for each other from within that street? ·       Who would do the work? ·       How would you pay for it? ·       Would there be rules? What would they be? Who would decide?

What if….people from your community could be employed to help get your daily food needs? ·       What would that look like? ·       How would they be paid? ·       Who would decide what sort of work they would do? ·       What methods would ensure healthy food?

What if…. there was a natural disaster and you and the people in your local area had to feed yourselves with the supplies that you had for an indefinite time? ·       Would you survive? ·       What would you eat? ·       What things might you learn to do differently in that time?

What if….we had to rely on food only produced in New Zealand? ·       What would we eat? ·       What would need to change in the way we live?

What if…… we had swap tables on street corners? ·       What would it take to make them work? ·       What sorts of things would be on the swap table? ·       What would happen if people took things without ‘swapping’ something?

What if…. no children in New Zealand ever went hungry? ·       What could you do to help make this happen? ·       How could a community work to support this?

What if… all children in New Zealand had practical experience of growing and cooking their own food? ·       How could knowledge and skills be developed? ·       Where could this be happening? ·       Who might be involved?

What if….. it was normal to barter food with our neighbours? ·       What knowledge would you need for this to be successful? ·       How would people know what was available?

What if… your school could enable families to halve their grocery bill? ·       In what ways could this happen? ·       Who could be involved?