More gardens for our schools

Math, English, plant production? We'll tell you why children should learn about growing food at school too.

Housekeeping and horticulture used to be part of almost every school education. Unfortunately, things are different today: Almost no school has a school garden where you can learn, but also eat. Housekeeping and gardening are simply outdated and no longer up-to-date. But wouldn't it be good if the little ones learn how to use plants again? We'll show you why gardening and food growing should be taught in schools again.

Purple cows give chocolate and fries grow on trees

One of the main reasons children should engage with the garden is to develop an understanding of the origins of food. In fact, many urban fairy tales like the purple cow that gives chocolate or the french fries tree are no longer bad jokes, A particularly bitter reality: especially small children believe more and more in fantasy plants and have no relation to the origin of theirs Food. The reason for this is also the lack of gardens: While most children in the past grew up with a vegetable garden behind the house, Nowadays, many children only come in with vegetables in the supermarket from which salad was quickly fetched for lunch Contact. There is also often a lack of adequate education from parents - because anyone who has never had anything to do with growing vegetables has a hard time familiarizing their children with the topic. In addition, in many areas it is simply not possible to create a great garden. That is why education at school is particularly important.

School and horticulture

Fortunately, many schools have enough space in their playground to create a small garden. The advantages of such a school garden are obvious: the children can not only be in dry theory to explore the origins of your lunch, but also first practical experience collect. After all, it's much more exciting to talk about the potato if you were there when it was planted. At the same time, the understanding of the origin of our food is strengthened: Purple cow and French fries tree are now a thing of the past.

But not only the understanding and interest in horticulture is awakened in the children. Children can also be taught a healthy diet in a playful way. During the joint harvest and the subsequent preparation, the foundations for a healthy future are laid with lots of vegetables instead of schnitzel and Co. So even stubborn vegetable refusers will not miss the opportunity to try the carrots that they have planted themselves. Even completely unknown types of vegetables may find their way into the home menu: whether beetroot, Swiss chard or broad beans, if you have harvested it yourself, you want to eat it too.

More than just vegetables

But not only the handling of food is taught to the children by integrating gardening into everyday school life. Much more abstract things and values ​​can also be conveyed and consolidated in a playful way. For example, it takes patience before a seed becomes a real plant, even if you prefer to see a result immediately. Reliability is also trained, after all, the plants want to be looked after regularly, otherwise they will die. Last but not least, exercise is good for the children: getting up and tackling instead of sitting around and listening doesn't do anything just fun, it also loosens up the lessons and encourages the students' concentration in the following Hours. Horticulture is a good addition to everyday school life for children and it would be desirable if the cultivation of food would soon be part of the curriculum in every school.