Farm to School Resources for Teachers
Farm to School connects schools (K-12) and local farms by serving healthy meals in school cafeterias, improving student nutrition, providing food, farm, and nutrition education, and supporting local, family farmers. There are over 2,000 farm to school programs nationwide.
Activities can include featuring fresh, local food in school meals, hands-on cooking and taste testing, edible school gardening, field trips to farms, and standards-based experiential learning in the classroom.
Over the last decade, teachers have been discovering creative ways to teach kids about food and farming, while at the same time meeting standards-based requirements in science, math, social studies, and literature. Here are some of our favorite resources below.
Sign up for the Georgia Organics monthly Farm to School e-Bite for an updated list of grants, upcoming events and articles here.
DeKalb Farm to School Mini Grant Application
Getting Started
Farm to School and Educational Garden Programs Guide. This resource guide, created by Georgia Organics and PLACE, provides tips on how to get started, suggested classroom readings, garden themes, sample kid-friendly recipes and tips on growing and maintaining a school garden.
Organizing your First Farm to School Meeting Not sure how to get your Farm to School program off the ground? This template provides a list of key stakeholders, helpful tips and a sample agenda.
Feeding Our Kids the Right Food… and Inspiring Them to Eat It. This is a report from the Center for Ecoliteracry documents Farm to School work from the mid nineties in New York City. Read what was being done then to get studnets into fresh food and gardening.
School Resources
How to Integrate Farm to School into Wellness Policy Farm to School activities dovetail perfectly into the federally mandated wellness policies that each district needs to write and implement. This sample policy provides helpful suggestions and wording.
Garden Based Nutrition Education Affects Fruit and Vegetable Consumption in Sixth-Grade Adolescents . This study investigated the effect of garden and nutrition education on teenagers consumption of fresh produce.
The East Atlanta Village Farmers Market Partnered with McNair High School for a week of educational classes focused on healthy lifestyles and local economies. Watch the video they created here.
The Effects of School Gardens on Students and Schools: Conceptualization and Consideration for Maximizing Healthy Development. This study aims to determine how sustainable the school gardens are which draws upon the ecological theory to see school gardens as a way to promote healthy lifestyles.
Classroom Resources
Delve deeper into farm to school with these recommended curriculum books.
Check out numerous kids gardening books to read to your class
These sample lesson plans were created by Atlanta Public School elementary school teachers. All of these teachers participated in the Georgia Organics Farm to School Workshop series.
This curriculum was created by Georgia Organics with high school students in mind.
This curriculum is geared towards elementary aged students although any student can learn from it.
Pre K – 3rd and 5th Grade Lesson Plans and Resources The Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project (ASAP) provides lesson plans for infant through 3rd grade levels for classroom and garden instruction as well as ideas, safety and recipes for cooking with young children. ASAP, in conjunction with the National Recreation Foundation, provides lesson for school gardens for 5th graders here.
Guide to Farm Field Trips for Farmers and Teachers Developed by Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture (ASAP), this helpful guide will make field trips more educational and memorable for everyone.
Guide for Coordinating Successful Taste Tests in the Cafeteria and Classroom. Developed by Vermont FEED, this guide demonstrates taste testings can be a great way to involve students, teachers, and the community in food service and awareness of healthy food choices.