Starting a garden is like planting seeds of hope for future generations to have better lives___ Our school grounds are going to be transformed into something fertile and fruitful.71 On a global scale, school feeding programmes are perceived by agencies such as the World Food Programme to be the key to ending global hunger and […]
Category: Children’s Spaces
Growing schools and edible school yards
… the outdoor clay oven is full of flame, stoked with dry sticks collected in the woods; next to it the bread made from the wheat from our ‘field’ in the garden is rising. In the classroom the jam made from the hedgerow blackberries in September is being brought out; and butter made from cream […]
Portable edible landscapes
In the United Kingdom, an estimated 50 per cent of school children bring packed lunches for their midday meal, a far lower proportion than elsewhere in Europe. An unknown number of children take food to school in the form of snacks of variable nutritional value. A packet of crisps can be consumed on the way […]
Edible spaces: designing for choice
The exercise of choice matters for children. In spite of Human Rights legislation and increased awareness of the importance of agency in childhood, the economic or market imperative is today the more powerful force. Early examples of initiatives in furnishing an element of choice in school meals can be found. A New York high school […]
The corporate edible landscape of school
It’s back to school and kids aren’t the only ones heading for the classroom. Marketers are taking more and more products from the boardroom to the homeroom and lunchroom through innovative partnerships.32 A 1995 report by the US-based Consumers Union divides corporate involvement in schools into four categories. First is in-school advertising, such as advertising […]
Inherited edible school spaces
The children commenting on their idealized or imagined school environments, both in 1967 and today, did so within an inherited school design and tradition. The edible landscape, and particularly the school meal, is immediately recognizable as a fundamental feature of schooling, particularly in the UK where the school day was established early in its history […]
‘The School I’d Like’: envisioned edible landscapes, 1967 and 2001
The school I’d Like Would be so fun With no strict teachers And in the shape of a big bun (Sarah, age 11, Edinburgh.)14 In 1967 the Observer newspaper hosted a competition which provided the opportunity for secondary school children in the UK to describe and design their preferred or ideal school. Nine hundred and […]
The edible landscape of school
Catherine Burke One of my earliest memories of school is associated with fear of the school dinner hall. One day, during the school meal, I felt sick and discovered an escape route from the daily hazard of dinner time. I was allowed to lie down on a camp bed inside the reception class room and […]
Site design and play
Children’s participation in the design process is a valuable way to teach them about the multitude of problems and opportunities that must be addressed in the creation of school environments. As ‘players’ in the design process, children will be able to more readily connect their own actions and decisions with environmental change, a key to […]
Forest management and community events
Cultivating and harvesting food are significant programmes for understanding the external environment as a dynamic system and inculcating a respect for other living things.18 The jury noted that many of the design proposals included programmes that used forest or agricultural management as an educational and community building event. Honourable mention Dave Hutch and Jean Kindratsky’s […]