🍏Sign up for our Harvest of the Month for Educators program (elementary and/or secondary).You will receive a monthly newsletter that features resources focused on the Harvest of the Month crop, including history and fun facts, book suggestions, lesson plans and additional resources. 

🍏Connect your school gardens to your classroom curriculum! Can you integrate your school garden into your humanities and STEM lessons? If you need some ideas, visit the Massachusetts Farm to School website for resources for educators of all grade levels! 

🍏Make time for social emotional learning and give your students some free time to explore the school garden. Ask them to use all of their senses: what do they see, hear, feel, smell? Here is a Sensory Herb Lesson. If possible, do a taste test in your classroom with a local crop or something grown in the school garden. 

🍏Organize a field trip to a local farm, farmers’ market, or food hub. If you can’t leave the campus, you could invite a local farmer to come speak to your students or look for a virtual field trip to a local farm. 

🍏Create a bulletin board that celebrates local food and local farms. Assign students topics to research in their own community. Have students identify their own topics that they would like to explore. 

🍏Are there issues in your community that your students would like to explore? Facilitate a community needs assessment with your students– what project ideas can they develop around food systems, climate, food waste, food miles, that relate to your own community? 

🍏Plant some seeds, and have students examine their growth and change. A sunny windowsill or grow lights can bring some excitement to your classroom. 

🍏Ask your students if there is a lot of food wasted in the school cafeteria? Brainstorm ways that your school could decrease food waste. Have students do a food waste audit. Consider starting a school-wide composting program. Learn about a program started by youth in Northampton, MA. 

🍏Do your students know what they are eating? Analyze ingredients on packaging. Teach about the food system. The Nourish curriculum offers a rich set of resources to open a meaningful conversation about food and sustainability. 

🍏Work with your school librarian to create a Farm to School book section. You can find an extensive book list here. 

🍏Collect your students’ favorite traditional recipes. Create a cookbook and cook a meal or snack together. Check out the work of a high school classroom in Lowell– could this lesson be adapted for your classroom?

🍏If your school doesn’t have a Farm to School team, start one! You can learn more about Farm to School here.

🍏Conduct a trash audit at your school to see how much waste there is and how you can reduce the waste. Learn more about what students did in Northampton to start a school-wide composting program at their school here. 

🍏Grow microgreens in school and distribute them to your local community. Watch a presentation of how other youth did that here along with other Farm to School initiatives. 

🍏Does your school have a garden? Ask your teachers if they can create more opportunities for your class to participate. If there is no garden, ask for support in starting a garden. 

🍏Try a new healthy food! Ask a friend to try it with you! Work with your school nutrition staff to make a taste test station and put out samples of healthy foods for others to try.

🍏Read a book about food, nutrition or agriculture. Check your school or local library to see what’s available. Here is a book list to help you get started. 

🍏How are climate and food justice intertwined? Watch high schooler Ollie Perrault from Youth Climate Action Now discuss what inspired her to become a youth activist.

🍏Sign up for our Harvest of the Month program. If you’re already participating, send us a recipe using local foods that we can share on our website. 

🍏Encourage students and staff to try a new, local healthy food by creating a taste test station and send us a photo or tag us in a social media post!

🍏Create a Farm to School themed bulletin board featuring local crops and farms that are available in your region. 

🍏Connect with a local farm to build relationships and avenues for procurement. Reach out to Massachusetts Farm to School for support and check out our local food map for ideas on farms near you.

🍏Sign-up for the Massachusetts Farm to School e-newsletter here to stay in the loop on the latest farm to school news, research, resources, and opportunities. 

🍏Make an announcement each morning or afternoon that highlights a fun fact about local healthy food or local farms. 

🍏Start a Farm to School Committee at your school and create a plan to roll out Farm to School programming school-wide. Learn more about opportunities to develop your program. 

🍏Plan in-service professional development around a farm to school topic, such as teaching Farm to School lessons across the curriculum, establishing a school garden (inside or outside), or food systems education. Explore curriculum from Mass Farm to School here.

🍏Does your District Wellness Policy include Farm to School activities? What about local purchasing in your cafeteria? If these things do not exist, what are some avenues you can take to add them? Who would you need to reach out to support building these programs? 

🍏Educate yourself and others on the positive benefits of hands-on learning in school gardens. Here are some resources to get you started. 

🍏Create a school-wide celebration and support all of your staff to highlight Farm to School month. Have a Kale-a bration, distribute local apples after school, host a school-wide dress up day, a school-wide taste test, an assembly that features local farmers, etc.! Make it fun to eat local and healthy foods!

🍏Read your school district’s wellness policy and look for specific policies to support farm to school programming. Get in touch with the school administrators to help you make this happen. 

🍏Is there a school garden committee or any group that is committed to Farm to School? Join the committee and bring a friend with you! 

🍏Does your school have a garden? Host a garden clean up day! Connect with a math teacher to have students design garden boxes and tech teachers to have students build them. If there is no garden, build one. School gardens can be inside or outside,  no land is required to grow food. Connect with Massachusetts Farm to School for resources to help you learn how to fund a school garden program.

🍏No outdoor space to build a garden? What about indoor gardening? Check out what one Farm to School team is doing to grow microgreens indoors.

🍏Help your school librarian build a Farm to School section in the school library. Check out this book list. Ask for community donations to buy copies for the school. Invite a local farmer or someone who works in the food system to launch the project!