Garden Based Nutrition Curriculum

Included on this page are great curriculum resources for Garden Educators and Class Teachers that can enhance nutritional education for your students and program. The resources are grouped by type with a short summary of their content for easier reviewing.

1. Got Veggies?
Grades 2, 3
Got Veggies? is a garden-based nutrition education curriculum created with the goal of getting children to eat more fresh fruit and vegetables. Got Veggies? features seven full lesson plans that are aligned with Wisconsin's Model Academic Standards for Nutrition, Health, Science, and other related subjects. A series of shorter garden-based activities are also included, as well as fun recipes and helpful tips for cooking and eating in the garden. This curriculum provides an all around great way to nurture students' interest in growing and eating fresh fruits and vegetables.

2. Nutrition to Grow On
Grades 4-6
Nine lessons are designed to teach children and their families about nutrition by relating each lesson to a garden activity. The curriculum uses the garden to integrate disciplines, including science, math, language arts, history, environmental studies, nutrition and health while reinforcing some of the California academic content standards. School gardens are wonderful sources of food and beauty and outlets for physical activity. They can also help students to discover fresh food and to learn to make healthier food choices. Nutrition to Grow On taps into these instructional gardens to cultivate the students' talents and skills while enriching their capacities for observation and thinking.

3. Growing Healthy Kids
Grades 2, 3
An 11 lesson, hands-on, activity rich curriculum for grades 2 and 3 that is focused on nutrition education and the connection to plant parts.

4. Botany on Your Plate
Grades K-4
The National Gardening Association is excited to announce its publication, Botany on Your Plate. Written by education staff at The University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley, this science unit for grades K-4 inspires fascination for and exploration of the structure, function, and flavors of the plants we eat. Every lesson begins with plant snacks that spark curiosity, interesting questions, and social dialogue to fuel the learning process. This inquiry approach engages children as botanists observing and collecting data, discussing findings, and reflecting on what they learned.

The curriculum weaves nutritional health, mathematics, language arts, and social studies together with investigative science, as well as health standards related to nutrition.

5. Eating Healthy From Farm to Fork
Grades K-2
Eating Healthy from Farm to Fork...Promoting School Wellness is a nutrition education curriculum that makes the connection between local food systems, garden-based learning, school food service, and the establishment of healthy habits. These comprehensive materials integrate nutrition education into grade-appropriate lessons that are specifically designed around the Nutrition Competencies for California Children and directly correlated to the core subjects of the California Content Standards.

6. Junior Master Gardeners Health & Nutrition from the Garden; Literature in the Garden Grades 3-5 (can be modified for K-12)
Junior Master Gardener, Texas Agricultural Extension Service. Activities are easy and especially useful for an after school setting. Based on solid science and research, this guide offers a range of activities around science, literature, and nutrition. Prices vary.

7. TWIGS Youth Development Program: Focus on Gardening and Nutrition
Grades K-6
Johns, Marilyn. University of California Cooperative Extension. 30 field-tested gardening and nutrition lessons for classroom or after school programs. The activities are intergenerational, hands-on, flexible and fun. It includes reproducible handouts and is well laid out and easy to implement with kids or adults. Very easy to use.
E-mail mjjohns@ucdavis.edu, Cost - $25.

8. Garden Enhanced Nutrition Education (GENE)
Grades K-12
Since 2009, Fresh Fruit and Vegetables: A Centerpiece of A Healthy School Environment trainings have taken place all across California. We strive to share all of the materials shared at our trainings on this Web site.

9. Collaborating Classrooms - My Garden Lesson Plans
Grades K-12
Developed by teachers and horticulturists, My Garden features garden-based nutrition lessons plans by grade level for Social Studies, Math, Language Arts, and Science.

10. Kids Cook Farm Fresh Foods
Grades 2-7
Activities engage teachers and students in grades 2-7 in exploring fresh, seasonal, locally grown produce through direct experience. Using tested recipes and farm profiles, Kids Cook Farm-Fresh Food links agriculture and the culinary arts to reading, mathematics, social sciences, and geography.

11. Food Day School Curriculum
Grades 4-7 (adaptable for all grades)
These lessons are designed to be taught as part of Food Day events in your community, but they can be used at any time. Teaching these lessons, we believe, will be a rewarding experience for you and your students. Your students will be motivated to follow the Food Day Eating Goals of "Eat Real," "Mostly Plants," and "Not Too Much." Your students will learn how to navigate through the food environment to find real food. We encourage you to teach these five lessons during the week of October 24, or to make them fit into your curriculum around that time.

12. Food, Land & People
Grades Pre-K- 12
Based in Chandler, Arizona. Food, Land & People is a nonprofit organization committed to helping people of all ages better understand the interrelationships among agriculture, the environment and people of the world. Food, Land & People's science- and social sciences-based curriculum, Resources for Learning, currently serves Pre-K to 12th grade students throughout the United States. The curriculum consists of 55 hands-on lessons, developed and tested by more than a thousand educators. Check out their extensive list of resources and the 20 lessons available in Spanish on the "Lessons" page.

13. California School Garden Network
Grades K-12
Access over a hundred creative garden- and food-based lessons, from various sources in California. Lessons can be easily adapted to fit local standards.

14. Toward a Sustainable Agriculture Curriculum for High School Students
Grades 9-12
Multi-module curriculum geared toward high school students with a focus on Upper Midwest agricultural systems. Modules cover all aspects of our food system from production to market.

15.Information Sheets.
These 40 informational sheets on fruits and vegetables have been created to assist you with your nutritional programs by the Hawai‘i Department of Health. Please use these with your communities to promote healthy eating.

Fruit Information Sheets

Informational Sheets on grains, eggs, beans, honey, oils, nuts, and water.

Vegetable Information Sheets

16. The Healthy Lunchtime Challenge Cookbook
54 winning recipes from America's Junior Chefs

16. Harvest of the Month Nutrition Education Survey
The Network created the Nutrition Education Survey (NES) to assess the impact of nutrition education delivered to primarily 4th-8th graders.

17. USDA Resources for Farm to School Evaluation Tools
Measure your success! Your efforts have the ability to reach beyond the school cafeteria. Periodically evaluating the impact your Farm to School activities play on students, school food service, parents, teachers, school administrators, farmers and community members can show the growth of your efforts and help identify areas to improve or expand as you reach your Farm to School goals. This link has sample educational tools that include surveys which you may find helpful in evaluating your Farm to School activities.

18. How to Test Foods for Fat
Some foods obviously contain fat because they are greasy to the touch. Others foods may not feel greasy but still may contain fat. Here is a very simple way to test foods to determine whether or not they contain fat.

19. Science in School: Bread-Making
Something as everyday as bread can offer a surprising spectrum of interdisciplinary teaching opportunities.