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What do you call a vacation where you don’t go anywhere? According to JT from The Environmental Blog you call it a “staycation”. I like that idea – a stay at home vacation. Think about it for a minute – no rushing around in planes, trains or buses, no credit card bills to pay immediately following your vacation, and no long car journeys involving a repetitious series of questions starting with, “Are we there yet?” Yep – this is the only no aggravation, low carbon footprint, money saving vacation idea I’ve heard of. And what’s more, if approached sensibly, it has the potential to deliver a lot of fun for everyone in the family! JT, I take my hat off to you… Okay, so what do you do on a “staycation”? Well, The...

Many schools are benefiting from the natural learning environment provided by the introduction of a school garden. In a joint project involving Growing Communities, Brisbane’s Northey Street City Farm and Health Promotion Queensland, many of Queensland’s local State schools are being encouraged to foster learning environments emphasizing gardening, healthy food choices and outdoor activity. Critical to the success of these projects is the involvement of as many community participants as possible. Each school aims to involve staff, students, P&C, as well as numerous other groups from the broader community. Children participating in school gardening projects enjoy hands on learning, physical activity, fresh air and clean food...

One of the best ways for children to learn the importance of making positive food choices is to get them actively involved in growing their own food. That’s exactly what’s happening at Winchester School in Toronto Canada. In this video, Mary Ito reports on how Winchester’s inner city children are being provided with the opportunity to learn about growing their own fruits and vegetables. In doing so, the children learn about soil preparation, planting from seed, bugs, weeds, harvesting and the importance of consuming good foods. All of the food grown by the children is used in the school lunch program. This is a really worthwhile program in which the children benefit from eating fresh produce as well as learning about where...

There are some exciting models emerging within the organic community. Some of these aim to connect local farmers with schools. A wonderful – and hugely successful – example of this type of model exists in Marin County. Marin Organic are an association of farmers, ranchers, agriculture advisers and marketing experts. The organization serves the local community by linking growers with local consumers. In this video, Scott Davidson, School Lunch Program head, explains how Marin Organic is forming a bridge between organic farmers and local schools. Apart from helping to provide approximately 12,000 children each week with nutritious locally produced food, the program also enables children to learn about, and connect with, where their...

In most Western countries we treat the symptoms, rather than identifying and addressing the root causes, of disease. It’s no surprise that the leading cause of premature death in Western society is heart disease. Our never-ending quest for efficiency, convenience and uniformity is making us sick. We’re overweight, we’re stressed and we’re tired. In this video, four children let us know that they are aware of the problem and would like us to do something about it. They’re asking for better foods to be served in schools. It’s a simple yet important message they have to share. With so much of our children’s learning taking place in the school environment these days surely it makes sense to teach the benefits...