Campus Food and Agriculture Education Lesson Plan Training and Experience Sharing Series

In the second class on the morning of April 28, teacher Kang Yilin from Chengzhong Elementary School shared with the participants the process of implementing food and agriculture education at Chengzhong Elementary School and the changes it brought.

Give children a stage, and let them show their boundless potential

In the past, people imagined rural elementary schools as being "very close to the land, with many opportunities to touch the soil." But in recent years rural areas have gradually become urbanized, and parents have increasingly stopped letting their children run out into the fields. Under the protection of parents and teachers, children have far fewer chances to try things and to dream. Teacher Kang Yilin mentioned: "If we want to bring out children's boundless potential, parents and teachers must show vulnerability at the right time and give them space."

The teacher then shared the story of the children making potato pudding. To let the children be independent, the teacher only played a short video on making pudding in class, and then let the children discuss among themselves how to go from harvesting potatoes to making pudding. When they actually began, they ran into a big problem: because the children did not know that harvested potatoes need to be dried in the sun, they spent a great deal of time taking out and peeling the peanuts, but because the peanuts had not been sun-dried, the final pudding was too wet to set. Through this process, the children discovered "where things could be better," allowing them to correct themselves through experience and learn from failure. Then you realize that children do not lack training; they lack a stage on which to show what they can do.

Putting the spirit of food and agriculture education into practice, and integrating it with existing subjects

Teachers within the system say: "What food and agriculture class? These lessons have long been in the textbooks." But often, because of limits on class time, teachers mostly cannot extend the existing food-and-agriculture-related lessons, so children never truly get to know food, agriculture, and the land.

The teacher extended and integrated the rice-growing process with elementary science class, integrated activities class, and health and physical education. At the start of the course, through various beef and hamburger set meals, the children learned about the importance of farming in Taiwan, which led into why rice is grown, and let the children actually prepare the land, store water, and apply basal fertilizer, using traditional methods to raise rice seedlings. During the process, the children unconsciously connected it with knowledge they had learned before. For example, when using a shovel, a child would loudly say: "This is the principle of the lever," and, combining what they had learned in science class, they discovered the nine kinds of weeds and the insects that commonly appear in rice paddies. The children who found insects would excitedly show off their discoveries to their younger schoolmates. Through guidance, rice cultivation for the children is no longer just an impression of transplanting and harvesting; it also includes the real feeling of being moved by interacting with the creatures in the rice paddy, as well as more detailed observation - tillering, flowering, and grain filling.

After the rice harvest, the children took part in the process of drying and collecting the grain, and combined it with math by calculating the children's hard-earned results using the current purchase price. After working all morning, the children were surprised to find: "It was actually only 40 yuan in income, not even enough to buy one boxed meal." Through this process they came to better understand the difficulties and hardships faced by agricultural producers.

One day, after the rice had been milled and packaged, the teacher took the children into a classroom where a pot was giving off steam, and let the children guess what it was. The children quickly guessed that it was the rice they had grown, so they tasted and compared the difference in texture between the rice they had grown themselves and other rice. Only then did they discover: "So the rice we ate in the past was actually this bad!"

The meaning of food and agriculture education in life and the changes it brings

When a participant asked a question, Teacher Kang mentioned: "Does food and agriculture education need to be cut off from the school's various subjects?" The answer, of course, is no. Although food and agriculture education is not classified under any single subject, what it brings to children is the interaction between people and nature, between people and people, and between people and society.

Finally, the teacher happily shared a recent school plan: to build a maze and an observation tower made of corn on campus. Besides letting the children understand the growth process of corn, the process of building the observation tower lets the children prove their own existence and builds cohesion among the children. The teacher shared joyfully: "When the school has consecutive holidays, the children use Line to divide up the watering work, and I don't have to worry about it at all." This process has made the children more proactive and more willing to try. She believes this is the power that food and agriculture education brings.