Northland Pines Farm to School Program

Farm to School Continues to Widen Horizons, Using Food

Over the winter months, you may think that a school farm and garden program, such as Farm to School would be relatively quiet, waiting for the snow to melt.  However for Northland Pines Farm to School program, the winter months are an ideal time to bring in visiting Farmers, and to really get hands on with nutrition and cooking skills.

One especially fun and educational activity Northland Pines Student have participated in this winter was the visit of the Spudmobile. All 3 of our elementary schools, as well as SOAR middle-schoolers, and our Montessori learners,  got to board the special mobile classroom, known as the Spudmobile, sponsored by the Wisconsin Vegetable and Potato Growers Association.  While on the Spudmobile, students got to learn about how potatoes are grown in Wisconsin, how they benefit and support our economy, and meet local potato farmers, in person!!  They also learned about pests that damage crops, and which kinds of potatoes are good to make into which favorite foods, like chips or fries. They even learned about potatoes being grown in space!

In addition to the Spudmobile's visit, students have been cooking up a storm all winter.  Second graders were hands-on with the states of matter, seeing how you can turn liquid cream, in to a delicious solid ice cream. All of the 5th graders got to play with their food in science learning how to use red cabbage as a pH indicator.  Our kindergartners have been cooking up banana bread, as part of a friendship and team building activity, and the 3rd graders at Land O' Lakes learned to make cheese, as part of their ongoing study of Wisconsin. The 3rd graders at Eagle River even burned up some of their excess energy on a nasty week of indoor recesses, by making healthy smoothies on our Blender Bike!

Farm to School Program entering 5th school year at Northland Pines

Over the course of the  2016- 2017 School year, 585 students in Northland Pines Elementary schools, the SOAR Charter Middle School, and our Montessori Learning Center participated in 3 to 5 hands on nutrition education lessons and activities.

Nutrition Education looks very different today. The Food Pyramid is a thing of the past. Most of what we learned about food in the early 1980’s was coloring pages and drawing out what a complete meal looked like.  

Students today are learning about food in practical, fun, and engaging ways.   Like our current approach to teaching writing and spelling, the focus isn’t just on food.  Farm to School lessons are both cross-curricular, and experiential.  Nutrition curriculum is inclusive of concepts, and teaches important life skills such as using a knife, food sanitation, vitamins and minerals, portion control, and balancing “sometimes foods” with healthy body and brain supporting “everyday” foods.

At the third grade level, we have really applied our Farm to School time to Social Studies, with most third graders in the district learning all about the food cultures on the different continents as they study them.  This means much more than just reading a list, or looking a picture in a textbook, it means cooking, and tasting new foods, learning about unfamiliar ingredients, and studying different types of agriculture.  This gives them greater global awareness, while also exposing them to new flavors, technical skills, and reinforcing math skills. They don’t often realize that they are growing better nutrition knowledge, until much later.  I received a Thank You letter from a student at the end of the past year, telling me how much he loved garbanzo beans now!  

Kindergarten lessons are often literacy based, including a story, learning to read and follow a recipe, and cooking or baking  a food from a book.  Science standards are reinforced when students participate in microgreen and sprouting activities, allowing them to follow a seed, on its journey from the packet, through germination and growth, all the way to their plate, as a spring roll, egg roll, or sushi wrap.

As older students start thinking about their futures,  food based careers in farming, distribution, or even as Chefs can be explored.  The SOAR Middle School students took a test run into Food Service in January, making their own cheese, tomato sauce, pizza crusts and finally putting it all together, in their Make Your Own Pizza Day.  Many Science standards come to life in the Chemistry that is involved in making cheese, or rising a pizza crust.

Farm to School reinforces the link to where our food comes from, and how it affects our economy including;  growing vegetables in the  school gardens, Guest Speakers such as the Wisconsin Milk marketing board, field trips to the farmers market,  and connections with local farmers,  such as our recent Goat Cheese tasting from Vilas County’s only Cheese Plant, and even visits from the Wisconsin Potato Growers Spudmobile.

We are excited to embark on another year of supporting and enhancing our classroom curriculum, through food.  It is a great testament to our local community, school district and school board, that we are able to be pioneers in the Farm to School field in the Northwoods.