Taipei City to promote food and agriculture education farm certification, combining agricultural instructors and teachers
How is food and agriculture education done? The Agricultural Development Section of the Department of Economic Development of the Taipei City Government recently launched a seed teacher training camp and food and agriculture education course applications, and is expected to train one hundred seed teachers and assist sixteen elementary schools in holding food and agriculture education courses. This training will serve as a bridge between schools and organic farms, with farmers going to schools to help establish gardens, or taking students to organic farms to learn, and subsequently promoting the guidance and certification of "food and agriculture education farms."
Expected to train one hundred food and agriculture education seed teachers
Chang Wei-chi believes that the goal of the "food and agriculture education courses" promoted by Taipei City is to build a bridge of interaction between schools and organic farms. Only by combining the farming expertise of farmer instructors with the teaching expertise of school teachers can food and agriculture education be deepened.
Fu Kuo-chiang, a nature teacher at Yongan Elementary School in Dazhi, Taipei City, signed up for this seed teacher training course. He believes that elementary school courses mention environmental pollution and the disadvantages of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, but discuss less such aspects as "what practices can be friendly to the environment? What can individuals do?" Therefore, he hopes that through this training course, he can bring some ideas and practices back to school and apply them in classroom teaching.
Fu Kuo-chiang also mentioned that the school previously had an empty lot designed as a vegetable garden, but its usage rate was not high, so the other two mentors also hope that through the food and agriculture education training course, they can take students to experience farming in practice.