Cooking In Your School Garden

What do you need to know to do a simple cooking lesson with your students? Can you use a cooking cart in your classroom? How do you connect your school garden to your cafeteria so students can eat the food they grow on a regular basis? Are you interested in conducting taste tests to help students try new foods? How do cooking lessons connect to teaching standards?

This section will provide the tools and information you need as you navigate how to teach your students about healthy eating and cooking using fresh ingredients from your school garden. In addition to the Lesson Planning resources below, we include the Recipe of the Month from our newsletter, share relevant cookbooks and videos, provide links to organizations that are focusing on serving nutritious food in school settings as well as funding sources to help support making cooking in your school garden a reality and more! Now let’s get cooking!

To help guide you, you may want to give some thought to what your short and long-term goals are for using your school garden produce in the cafeteria and classroom before you get started. Having a plan will help you get the most out of the rest of the sections below!

Click on the links below to go directly to the sections you are interested in or simply scroll down the page!

Resources: Lesson and Activity Planning

Here are some organizations and resources to help you get started with planning lessons and activities for cooking in your school garden. Check out our Teaching in Your School Garden webpage for additional resources too!

The Edible Schoolyard Project is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the transformation of public education by using organic school gardens, kitchens and cafeterias to teach both academic subjects and the values of nourishment, stewardship, and community.

Cooking with Curiosity Curriculum introduces students to cooking skills while building reflection practices so that they can cook confidently on their own terms. The curriculum includes four-units with approximately 40 lessons designed to be completed over the course of a semester. Lessons are written for middle school students but many will adapt easily to elementary and high school levels.

• Unit 1 introduces students to basic kitchen skills such as knife safety and recipe reading.
• Unit 2 introduces students to more basic kitchen skills such as knife techniques and approximating recipes. Students practice preparing recipes that do not involve heat.
• Unit 3 introduces students to more basic kitchen skills such as sauteing vegetables and basic baking methods. Students practice preparing recipes using the stovetop and oven.
• Unit 4 sets students up for their final project of researching and cooking a recipe with ingredients that are important to them or their families. Students practice the kitchen techniques they’ve learned through the curriculum and utilize their reflection practices to debrief the project and their cumulative experience.

Check out their Resource Library for free lesson plans and materials by subject and grade level as well as Kitchen Classroom and Kitchen Skills. They also have a virtual training titled Exploring Kitchen Classroom Systems and Structures Presentation. For more information, go to edibleschoolyard.org

Vermont FEED provides training, coaching, professional learning and technical assistance to schools, food service staff and farmers working to build strong farm to school programs. Although their Farm to School: Highlighting Local Fruits and Vegetables Guide was created for schools participating in the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP), it is good for anyone looking for ideas for creating learning opportunities in the classroom around fresh food. FFVP provides all students in participating schools with a variety of free fresh fruits and vegetables throughout the school day which is not only an opportunity to incorporate nutrition education in the classroom while providing a free healthy snack, it is also an opportunity to support a neighborhood farmer by buying local. Updates include NEW Standards-Based Curriculum Activities! For more information, check out their Resource Library for lesson plans for PK-12th grade.

My Plate

MyPlate, the official symbol of the five food groups from the USDA! MyPlate resources and tools are designed to be used in lesson plan modules.

• Discover MyPlate (Kindergarten)
• Serving Up MyPlate (Grades 1-6)
• Fueling My Healthy Life (Grades 6-8)

My Plate also provides information to help students explore each of the food groups: Fruits, Vegetables, Grains, Protein Foods, and Dairy with photos of portion sizes and discuss how foods from different cultures fit. You can enhance your lesson plans with free, printable resources and activity sheets on the Kids page, including MyPlate messages and a printable certificate for a MyPlate Champion. For older students, you can encourage them to take the MyPlate Quiz or download the free Start Simple with MyPlate app. Check out the Scavenger Hunt Worksheet, Student Lesson Plan, and Community Lesson Plan.

Partner with a Culinary Educator

Interested in partnering with a culinary educator to help you offer cooking lessons? There are several organizations that offer free culinary programs to schools such as UMaine Cooperative Extension, Maine FoodCorps and Maine SNAP-Ed. Or you could arrange something with your school’s nutrition director or plan a field trip to a local community center with a teaching kitchen space!

UMaine Cooperative Extension EFNEP Program

The University of Maine Cooperative Extension’s Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) delivers interactive food and nutrition education for free through group lessons in community sites including schools. For more information, email extension.efnep@maine.edu or contact your local county office.

Maine Food Corps

FoodCorps’ partner directly with schools to teach kids about growing, cooking, eating nourishing food plus advocate for broad investment in food education. For more information, go to foodcorps.org.

Maine SNAP-Ed

Maine SNAP-Ed offers classes that are led by trained Nutrition Educators. Each session is fun and engaging with food tastings and FREE materials to take home. Get connected to your local Nutrition Educator and request a SNAP-Ed educator come to your school here.

Here is an excerpt from the School Garden of the Month profile of Sedgwick Elementary School who collaborated with Maine SNAP-Ed to offer nutrition education lessons.

The Maine SNAP-Ed Nutrition Education Team knows that introducing kids to a variety of fresh, nutritious, and yummy foods and basic home-gardening skills at an early age can help them to develop healthy eating habits and set them on the path to a healthier and more vibrant life. Throughout the 2020-2021 academic year, Healthy Acadia Nutrition Educator Nicole Gurreri collaborated with faculty and staff at Sedgwick Elementary School to offer their pre-K, first, second and third-grade students virtual nutrition education lessons. Once the school year ended, she continued working with students from the Sedgwick School during the summer of 2021 through their summer school program, offering a “Cooking Matters to Kids” program for ten summer school participants. Gurreri has also been working closely with the school principal and several teachers to revitalize their school garden program. “I love working with Sedgwick Elementary students and teachers, said Gurreri. “It’s a small, tight-knit community and they work hard to make their school an inclusive and inspiring place!”

Cooking Carts

Cooking carts offer convenience for school garden coordinators and educators to offer cooking demonstrations in indoor and outdoor classrooms. Everything you need to cook is in one place!

Here are a couple options for you to consider to obtain a cooking cart for your program.

Want to make your own Cooking Cart?!

You can price some cooking cabinets, customize them by adding wheels and then decide what kind of gadgets and cooking tools you need to make it work for your program. Some school gardens have written grants from organizations such as Maine Agriculture in the Classroom to help fund the project. See the Funding Sources section below as well as the Financing Your School Garden section on our website for more information.

Food Fuels Learning showcased the cooking carts pictured above on their Facebook page that were constructed for use at Amanda C. Rowe Elementary School, Lyseth Elementary School and East End Community School in an effort to increase nutrition education among students. Each cooking cart gives teachers an opportunity to incorporate cooking education into their curriculum to teach children about nutrition while simultaneously learning life skills.

The Charlie Cart Project provides all the equipment needed to get 30 students up and cooking! The cart included a 54-lesson curriculum which can be adaptive to skill sets or grade levels, is aligned to common core standards, and was developed by teachers and chefs. As part of the Charlie Cart network, educators have ongoing access to resources, programs, and peer-to-peer connections to support their success, empowering them to be long-lasting agents of change in their communities. The cart comes fully equipped, assembled and ready to roll into your classroom or wherever you’ll be teaching hands-on cooking with an oven, rinse station, induction cooktop, Vitamix blender and 170+ pieces of kitchen cooking equipment that all fits within the cart itself. The current subsidized price is $14,250 + shipping. Funding for a Charlie Cart could come from a variety of sources including grants. Here is an article about Houlton Elementary School who benefitted from a USDA Farm to School grant to obtain a Charlie Cart: Mobile Kitchen Cart Comes to Houlton Elementary, Southside Schools

Connecting the School Garden to the Cafeteria

Are you interested in donating or selling produce from your school garden to your school cafeteria? Is your cafeteria interested in offering food made from produce grown in the school garden? Good communication with your school cafeteria and nutrition staff will help to ensure your success! If you are interested in supplying produce to your cafeteria, review the resources section about Food Preparation and Safety below.

Promoting the Maine Harvest of the Month and conducting Taste Tests are a couple ways that school gardens are connecting to their cafeterias. Cafeterias may also be able to be reimbursed for purchasing from local sources including school gardens.

Maine Harvest of the Month

Harvest of the Month (HOM) is a nationwide marketing campaign that promotes the use of seasonally available, local products in schools. Each month a different local product is highlighted and participating schools pledge to serve the product and promote it through educational materials and activities such as Taste Tests. Check out their resource page with fact sheets, recipes and videos as well as to sign up for their monthly newsletter.

Taste Tests

Many schools hold taste tests with their school cafeterias to introduce new menu items and get students excited to try healthy food choices. The Guide to Taste Testing Local Foods in Schools is designed to help school nutrition staff, teachers and farm to school coordinators develop a successful taste test program to encourage students to try new foods, explore a variety of healthy dishes, and develop lasting healthy eating habits.

Here are a few tips and suggestions for a Taste Test event:

• Taste Test Basics from FoodCorps
• Host a Taste Test from Actions for Healthy Kids

Food Preparation and Safety

Check out the resources below to help familiarize yourself with the policies and procedures that your school cafeteria must follow in order to incorporate produce from your school garden into the food they serve. Good communication and a working knowledge of policies and procedures can help ensure your success!

Here are a few simple do’s and don’ts for providing produce to your cafeteria:

• Introduce yourself to the staff in your school cafeteria and nutrition program and ask if they are interested in using produce from the school garden. If they aren’t interested or unable to use produce from your school garden at this time, it’s good to know before you invest a lot of time planning to work with them.
• If they are interested, ask:
  • which vegetables and fruit can they use in the cafeteria and how do they prefer to receive produce from the school garden?
    • For example, should vegetables be washed or precut? Can you freeze produce that is ready in the summer to use in the fall when the students return to school? Do vegetables and fruit need to be delivered in specific amounts or in specific containers?
  • What vegetables and fruit they can’t use…
    • For example, home canning or preserved foods can not be processed and then transferred to your food service program because this must be done in a licensed, commercial kitchen.

Review the policies and procedures below so you can incorporate standard operating procedures (SOP) in your school garden planning:

Policies and Procedures

School garden programs that plan to integrate their produce into the cafeteria should establish and maintain Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point Plans (HACCP) based on standard operating procedures. These HACCP’s provide clear instructions and uniform processes for serving garden-grown produce in school food service settings to make sure you are in compliance with school cafeteria requirements.

The School Garden Best Practice: Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point Plans provide clear instructions and uniform processes for serving garden-grown produce in school food service settings.

The School Garden Food Safety: Assessment Tools, Resources, and Procedures manual (developed by Massachusetts Farm to School and the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources with support from a USDA Farm to School grant) includes materials outlining school garden food safety best practices in order to minimize risks associated with serving food from school gardens.

The Using School Garden/Greenhouse Produce (from the Falmouth Schools Food Service) outlines procedures that apply to foodservice employees who prepare or serve food plus students and staff working in school gardens and greenhouses.

The Farm to School Food Safety Checklist is a tool to initiate communication between a farmer and school food service director (FSD) about the farmer providing produce to local K-12 schools. The information gives FSDs background knowledge on the farms they may be purchasing from and provides FSDs the opportunity to ask questions and learn more about a farm’s practices. Note: Checking “no” or “n/a” on any given question will not necessarily prohibit you from selling to schools. This is the start of the conversation.

Farm to School: Connecting the Cafeteria to the Classroom

Farm to school is a three-pronged approach that incorporates agricultural-based education, hands-on learning through school gardens and increased access to fresh, local foods through local procurement by school meal programs. Farm to school strategies are shown to improve fruit and vegetable consumption, increase knowledge about food origins, improve academic achievement, and support the local economy.

The Maine Farm & Sea to School Network mission is to build a communication and coordination infrastructure at the school and community level to support farm to school programs throughout Maine.

The Maine Farm & Sea to School Institute is a year-long professional program for school food system change. The Institute supports Maine schools to increase healthy food access, create a culture of equity and wellness plus strengthen their local food systems by bringing school teams together to build relationships, skills, and a collaborative action plan for Farm & Sea to School (FSTS) programming. Team members leave ready to support one another and implement an FSTS action plan across their school or district while building shared leadership for the long haul. With the support of a Coach, teams spend the Institute year connecting Classroom, Cafeteria, and Community. Curious about the Farm and Sea to School movement in Maine? Check out this Maine Farm & Sea to School Institute 2022 video to learn all about it!

The Cafeteria Success Stories from School Nutrition Professionals Webinar showcases three school nutrition professionals from Montana and Vermont to discover how they are spearheading innovative farm to school programs. Delve into their inspiring success stories, learning how they’ve transformed school cafeterias into hubs of fresh, locally sourced, and sustainable food. Gain practical insights into sourcing, menu planning, and engaging with local farmers to enhance the nutritional quality of school meals.

Cookbooks, Recipes and Videos

Here are some links to cookbooks, recipes and videos that offer more information for teaching cooking.

• Culinary Quick Bites
• Pollinator Friendly Cookbook
• Healthy School Recipes
• Herb Society of America Recipes
• Vermont FEED’s New School Cuisine
• Recipes for Healthy Kids: Cookbook for School
• ChopChop Family
• My Plate Kitchen
• Teaching Kitchen Collaborative’s (TKC) Resources & Events page.
• Culinary Classroom

Check out the MSGN YouTube Channel for these webinars that include information about cooking in your school garden and working with your cafeteria:

• MSGN Planning Ahead: Back to School Gardens and Nutrition Education Connections includes a presentation on nutrition connections.
• MSGN Taste Test and Harvest of the Month includes connections between the school garden, taste tests, and Maine’s Harvest of the Month program.
• MSGN Connecting School Gardens to Classrooms and Cafeteria presented by Falmouth Schools showcases the connection between the school orchard, gardens, classrooms and cafeteria including a food demonstration.

Recipe of the Month

Each month we feature a recipe in our newsletter to coincide with the Harvest of the Month or School Garden of the Month profiles.

Organizations and Community Partners

Maine Organizations

• UMaine Cooperative Extension EFNEP Program
• Maine Farm & Sea to School Network
• Maine School Nutrition Association
• Maine Nutrition Council
• Maine Food Corps
• Maine SNAP-Ed
• MDOE: Local Foods in Local Schools
• Maine Farm to School Cook-off.

National Organizations

• Chef Ann Foundation
• Cooking Matters
• EatFresh
• Edible Schoolyard Project
• Foodhero
• Life Lab
• The Lunch Box
• Scratchworks
• USDA Food and Nutrition Service
• Whole Kids Foundation

Funding Sources: Grants

See our Financing Your School Garden page for more information on grants and fundraising opportunities and read our newsletter for the Grant of the Month!

• Salad Bars to Schools (SB2S) is a granting program that provides schools and districts with salad bar equipment and support.
• Get Schools Cooking Grant from the Whole Kids Foundation
• USDA Farm to School Turnkey Grants that supports efforts to develop or improve food-producing gardens based at schools.

Training Opportunities

• The Maine Farm & Sea to School Institute is a year-long professional program for school food system change.
• University of Maine Cooperative Extension offers the following training:
  • Cooking for Crowds Food Safety Training
  • ServSafe® Food Protection Manager Certification
• Farm Food Safety Planning Made Simple
• The Institute of Child Nutrition offers virtual group training such as the Utilizing the Cafeteria as a Classroom course. It provides a valuable venue where school nutrition professionals can assist teachers in encouraging students to make wise food choices that will contribute to a healthy lifestyle.

Other Resources

Healthy Teachers provides teachers with more knowledge about nutrition and healthy eating so they can not only lead happier, healthier lives, they can be stronger role models for students and be better advocates for school wellness policies. This free two-hour nutrition and cooking class is designed to transform staff well being through a fun, interactive class that breaks down simple nutrition into digestible information that everyone can use.

Questions? Contact info@msgn.org or use our Contact Us form on the website.

We thank the Quimby Family Foundation for a Nourishment Grant in support of Cooking in Your School Garden!