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Posted in News Mayo Education Centre.

Edible Landscape Project - Primary Schools Programme

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Edible Landscape Project CLG, Roslynagh, Knockfin, Westport, County Mayo, F28ND00 

Registered Company No.: 634765

AUTUMN 2024

PRIMARY SCHOOLS  - Food Forest, Climate Education Programme

The Edible Landscape Project (ELP) based in Westport Co Mayo, a social enterprise and registered charity, has devised a unique and fun approach to encourage more schoolchildren to understand how to engage positively with climate change, by showing them how to grow and consume food in an environmentally sustainable, climate smart way.

HOW?   Through ELP’s Food Forest  - Climate Education Program.                                                             With ELP’s help, Primary School groups plant a simple 2m x 2m food forest in their school garden and using the teaching resources provided by ELP, tudents learn how to plant trees, grow food and begin to make simple but vital changes in what and how they eat, to improve their health, to strengthen their communities and to protect the planet.

Our Food Forest Programme PROVIDES;

  1. Five lesson plans, downloadable from ELP’s website for teachers to teach their students about the link between Climate Change and Food. These resources are curriculum linked and the teacher can be assured that the children will be developing the skills as outlined for each age group but with the added advantage of the climate change lens. 
  2. Allows children to engage positively with climate change, lowering levels of childhood climate anxiety – these have been growing steadily as media coverage around climate change has increased exponentially in 2021.  All lessons are positively framed with proactive solution based answers to each of the topics. 

 The Climate Education Program has been rolled out in over 30 schools in Mayo and Sligo.

CONTENT

All lessons are centred around a 2m x 2m Food Forest, planted in the school garden and referred to constantly throughout the classes. 

 A Food Forest is a mini ecosystem, providing students with a roadmap for developing interconnected ecosystems. This mimics the type of world we want our children to live in, where everything is connected and the connections between everything are understood and respected.

Current CEP Modules are:

Modules 1-3 address Food Growing:

  1. SOIL - First steps in soil management is planting the apple tree/ observing worm populations- showing them a wormery/ checking texture of soil/ adding nutrients such as manure and seaweed and the conversations that go with that. Understanding how Food Wasre can be returned to the soil as organic matter which helps fertilise the soil
  2. BIODIVERSITY - students get the opportunity to observe biodiversity levels throughout the year by returning to the Food Forest
  3. WATER - students observe how to keep soil covered so plants grow better and don’t require constant watering, and the overall importance of clean water in the ecosystem

Module 4 address Food Consumption

  1. FOOD MILES - using the Food Miles calculator and packaging from local supermarkets and asking questions such as “Why are we buying apples from Argentina when we can be wing them at school?” Teaching children to request more locally sourced organic foods from their family food shop

Module 5 addresses Food Growing, Waste and Diposal

  1. FOOD FOREST - All lessons revolve around the food forest, which will allow children to observe changes over the course of the year and apply learnings 

Supports offered:

  • Teaching Resources – once a school has decided to participate in ELP’s Climate Education Program and chosen which class they would like to engage (3rd to 6th classes are ideal), the school is then asked to sign a confidentiality form whereupon ELP’s Teaching Resources are made available from the ELP website
  • Contact is made with the ELP Schools Coordinator in the area to agree a suitable food forest planting date – usually one date in autumn and another in spring
  • Site Preparation & Planting - a parent or teacher or designated person from each school is asked to help manage the food forest planting. The designated person is added to a Whatspp group with other schools in the area where common questions are answered by ELP’s Schools coordinator.
  • All planting materials are supplied by ELP. A planting map is made available for teachers.
  • We ask that participating classes engage in a “Pay It Forward” act whereby students fundraise a small amount of cash (approximately €20) to buy a tree for a newly participating school

CEP Impacts:

  • Teaching children how to engage positively with climate change, thereby helping alleviate climate anxiety, but also teaching systems thinking to kids.
  • ELP uses a Food Forest to educate children about the interconnectedness of our food systems and how, when we lose this connectedness, we affect climate change.
  • More and more, systems thinking is becoming a sought-after skill in the workplace.

Recognised by educators, scientists and entrepreneurs as one of the most valuable skills for the 21st century.

https://www.ediblelandscapeproject.ie/

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