Food Ladder Leading the Way at Ungarra Primary School
Have you heard of Food Ladder?
Did you know that Food Ladder is the world’s first not-for-profit organisation to use hydroponics and environmentally sustainable technologies to create food and economic security for communities? If not, I encourage you to google it and enlighten yourself. This system allows you to grow turn-around crops in 4-6 weeks!
Ungarra was lucky enough to receive the 11th greenhouse in Australia two years ago and recently we were asked to host a regional Food Ladder training day which was attended by representatives from seven different schools across Eyre Peninsula.
National Head of Food Systems Dylan Male travelled from Melbourne and ran the four hour session where participants were instructed in how these greenhouses operate, their technological monitoring systems, the benefits for communities (particularly remote and disadvantaged) and also information on how schools can become involved in this amazing program.
Our students demonstrated how they monitor and manage the greenhouse each day then Sue shared lots of ‘on the ground’ knowledge and tips about managing and growing in the greenhouse while Lisa explained how Ungarra have introduced the AI lesson planning tool into the kitchen. Introduced at the National Summit held in Sydney in May, the planner allows us to be able to directly link both kitchen and garden activities into the curriculum strands which is an incredible tool for teachers and helps create more targeted learning outcomes for our students.
Participants dined on a delicious array of seasonally cooked dishes from our garden including Chicken and Pomegranate Couscous Salad, Ginger and Bok Choy Soup, school made crackers, dried fruits, dips, jams and scones and had fun creating their own Poke bowls – all topped off with a Nigella Lawson Orange Syrup cake. Isabella Moore, an award winning photographer and media expert from Sydney, joined Dylan and will be using the footage and photography taken to make a new training video for national Food Ladder distribution.
Written by Lisa Fitzgerald on behalf of Ungarra Primary School
