Kitchen Garden Program

Railway Carriage Kitchen Garden Preparation Area

Our school is putting in place a Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program which has required our school to commit to the construction of covered dining deck areas around the existing railway carriage and the employment of Garden & Kitchen Specialists as well as a Program Coordinator. We are required to provide 5 kitchen workstations within the railway carriage area. The Railway Carriage Kitchen Garden Preparation Area will provide the 5^th kitchen workspace area for students and staff to prepare harvested seasonal crops for the timetabled student class cooking sessions.

The aim of this project is to provide a real life context for learning in which the theory and practice of herb garden

growing, harvesting, preparing and sharing are interwoven. Students will have a 45 minute gardening session supported by a 90 minute cooking session that is embedded into the curriculum in a fortnightly timetable. The process of paddock to plate will capture their interest, curiosity and energy as well as their appetite. Hands on experience in both the kitchen and garden will provide students with physical activity, opportunity to learn new language to describe flavours, foods and plants and develop maths skills as they calculate, measure and weigh. The awareness of environmental challenges and diversity is enhanced as well as learning how to work as a team, develop awareness and respect for other cultures and grow their confidence and self esteem as they achieve new skills and knowledge.

This project will contribute to the food garden objectives by providing:

Hands-on experience that will result in practical & educational skills that facilitate student learning
We will continue to establish strong school and local community links by awareness raising, regular progress reports, volunteer drives, media releases and continuing to use different methods to encourage community support
Build stronger relationship to increase parent/carer involvement
Student ownership of the project

The kitchen garden program will involve 184 students from Year 2 – 6 on a fortnightly timetable with 45 minute gardening sessions one week and 90 minute kitchen sessions in the alternate week. Kindergarten and Yr 1 students will also be involved but to a lesser degree of participation.

Learning outcomes will include:

Polite dinner-table conversation, expand food experiences & pleasurable food experiences – build self esteem, resilience & confidence
Etiquette, technique & engagement
Inspiration for home gardening & cooking
Relationship building between volunteers and students
Development of social & life skills & garden to table cycle
Environmental studies – recycling, water conservation - – living smart concepts
Nutrition, healthy living habits, life skills & parent participation
Organic gardening & companion planting
Multi-sensory & utilise visual concept (eg harvest table)
Creative arts – incorporated into the garden and kitchen to establish enchanting places & celebrate the beauty of ingredients
Numeracy & Literacy links eg, scientific reports, procedure writing, measuring, calculations, etc.

Aldavilla Primary School's Railway Carriage Kitchen Garden Preparation Area will introduce all students to the pleasures of preparing, cooking and eating a variety of foods they have grown and harvested themselves. This will support the need in our community to establish the early development of life long eating habits and life skills. The lack of positive experiences at home has created the need for our school to include rich and interdisciplinary programmes to fill this gap through the growing, harvesting, preparing and sharing of food.