There are 550 Eco-schools in nine European countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and also Malta) which were focused on some of the most crucial problems concerning food. These problems include; disrespecting of seasonality, consumption of processed foods, palm oil, distance between farmers and consumers, food waste, consumption of meat and dairy, and loss of food varieties. The Ghaxaq Primary school in Malta decided to cover all of them.
One topic every month & practical activities
Most of the Eco-schools tended to choose one or only a few food topics to focus on, but in the Ghaxaq Primary school in Malta wanted to cover all six issues, which was quite a challenge. The local Ekoskola team decided to talk about responsible food consumption both at school and in their community. The plan was to focus on one topic each month. Thanks to that, pupils gained the insight into the complexity of food issues step by step.
The best way for students to learn and get an understanding of complex ideas, is through practical activities. That is why the Ekoskola team tried to come up with several interesting activities that would be attractive and fun for the kids but at the same time educational.
Breakfast Club making smoothies
For food sustainability, seasonality is very important. In Ghaxaq school, the Breakfast Club was founded to promote fresh, local and seasonal choices by preparing smoothies for kids. They use only local, fresh, and seasonal fruit for their smoothies, and also, they have fresh yoghurt and local milk available.
The Parents Cooking Club
Not only pupils, but also their parents were involved in this project. They established The Parents Cooking Club where they could learn how to bake their own cakes. They wanted to completely avoid the highly processed foods that contain palm oil. They also decided to use Fair Trade products in their baking, because they wanted to support the idea of guaranteeing a decent wage for workers in developing countries.
Meatless Mondays
It’s already a well-known fact that consumption of meat has serious impact on the environment. So, in the Ghaxaq school they decided to promote the idea of one meat free day per week. For that reason, they established Meatless Mondays – a day when the whole school eats a traditional Maltese meal called “hobz biz-zejt u tadam” instead of processed meat sandwiches.
Let´s meet a farmer!
The very important activity the teachers came up with was visiting and interviewing a farmer at his farm. Thanks to that, the pupils could see where their food comes from and understand the hard work that growing food requires. Pupils even tried to be farmers themselves and established an herb garden, and a vegetable patch on the school grounds. This way, they were able to get the understanding of how difficult it is to grow food.
Different tomatoes
Thanks to the newly established garden, the kids also learned a lot about food diversity. They planted different types of tomatoes which were then used in an uncooked, summery pasta sauce. Pupils realized for themselves that there is not only one type of tomato, that they usually purchase in a supermarket, but that the diversity of food is indeed broad and worthy of being discovered.
Meals from leftovers
To close the loop, of course, they could not forget about the food waste issue. Pupils learned to make bread pudding called “pudina tal-hobz” from leftover bread. They also used leftover carrots to bake a tasty and healthy carrot cake. They understood that leftover food could be used in a very tasty and healthy way.
Ghaxaq primary school chose to cover the topic of food very broadly. Furthermore, they managed to involve many students and the local community in this project. So thanks to We Eat Responsibly, the pupils, together with their parents, learned a lot about food and its impact on our planet.
