From Garden to Table: food education for young people

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, ‘Life is what you make it. Always has been, always will be”. While some people are quite content to maintain the status quo, others see opportunities for improvement.

This is certainly the case for a Christchurch food technology teacher who is putting her heart and soul into improving food education programmes and resources for local schools.
Casebrook Intermediate’s Lauren Dick-McCann has made it her mission to teach her Year 7 and 8 students how to grow, harvest, prepare and share good food through a nationwide food education and literacy programme Garden to Table. Now she has become known for her thriving garden which she refers to as her ‘outside classroom’.
“Food education goes beyond the ability to identify a fruit or vegetable,” Lauren says.
“It’s about giving our younger generations the tools to develop this necessary life-skill and the knowledge of how to feed themselves well.”
A collaborative and hands-on programme which aims to change the way children approach and think about food, Garden to Table has armed Casebrook’s students with the resources they need to make better food choices. The programme operates as part of a core specialist course at Casebrook and works in conjunction with the school’s Food Technology curriculum.
Casebrook Intermediate Principal Sharon Keen is supportive of the approach, crediting it with improvements in other facets of school life, such as better attentiveness, socialisation and class attendance.
Locally, Diamond Harbour Primary, St Martin’s Primary School, North Loburn School, Kaiapoi Borough School, Riccarton Primary School (in partnership with T&G Global), Victory School Nelson (in partnership with T&G Global) and Casebrook Intermediate have all been benefiting from the programme.
For more information, visit
www.gardentotable.org.nz.