“It’s been incredible to watch the students become more accustomed to adding different vegetables and herbs to their cooking.”
- Project Manager, Jilkminggan and MacFarlane (NT)
EON is in its second year of the Thriving Communities Program at MacFarlane Primary school, teaching students from preschool to Year 6. Edible Garden lessons have focused on knowing when vegetables should be harvested- a timely lesson after some of the younger students were so excited at the sight of their vegetables growing they starting picking everything they could see! The older students have been learning about crop rotation and soil improvement, so the garden can have the healthiest soil possible. This knowledge has been used to establish and help maintain a new garden for the preschool, planting lots of herbs so the preschool students can touch, smell and taste different flavours.
The students have also maintained their large garden space, successfully growing eggplants, Chinese cabbage, cucumbers, zucchinis and bananas. Three new garden beds have been built with the help of the Katherine High School students who regularly walk over from their campus and help in the garden.
During the EON Healthy Eating lessons, students were shocked to find out how much sugar is in energy and soft drinks. As a substitute to these drinks, lemongrass from the garden was used to make a refreshing, no-sugar iced tea. This went down a treat!
Another huge hit in the kitchen was making sushi with cucumbers from the garden, even if some students didn’t initially understand how seaweed could possibly be edible! Preparing recipes from differently cultures ignites the students’ curiosity and encourages them to try different foods.
