Gortbrack Organic Farm

The Living Classroom 2008

Growing Local Organic Food &

Bio-diversity in Schools

This is the first year of bringing The Living Classroom to Bloom in the Phoenix Park. This garden demonstrates the huge possibilities of using the school grounds as an educational resource, to learn about organic food production & the importance of bio-diversity. A school organic garden is a practical, long lasting and sustainable response to the current environmental issues of climate change and development education. The school garden is THINK GLOBAL-ACT LOCAL in action. School grounds tend to be grass & concrete. The environmental school design converts the school grounds into a highly stimulating & interactive educational resource. It brings biodiversity & food production into the heart of the school system.

This demonstration school garden represents a large diversity of habitats & growing areas, including a vegetable patch, herbs & flowers, native woodlands & hedges, Heritage apple trees, fruit bushes, wild areas, pond, water collectors.

This project aims to explore the possibilities of creating educational school grounds in the form of the edible schoolyard; including cross-curricular links for the teacher in the classroom. It also supports other educational initiatives such as The Food Dudes Programme, The Incredible Edibles, The Green Schools Programme, Discover Primary Science, etc.

As it is, only schools with ongoing organic school garden projects get to see the full value of the organic school garden. This demonstration garden will allow other schools, grandparents, parents, children & the wider community to see the wonderful potential of this outdoor classroom.

In order to encourage and help schools wishing to create their own school garden Bord Bia is in the process of producing a DVD on this topic. The DVD traces the development of a number of organic school gardens through a full year and will be available from September 2009. Bord Bia has commissioned the school garden at Bloom and the production of the DVD, both of which are sponsored by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries & Food.

Relevant Links - Sustainable Food Education is being provided by a number of groups around the country – this list is not definitive so please contact us if you are not on the list at the emails below!

michael.maloney@bordbia.ie earthedkerry@gmail.com

Food Education/Environmental Education:

Ø Kerry Earth Education Project, www.gortbrackorganicfarm.com

Ø Bord Bia www.bordbia.ie

Ø It’s Garden Time, www.bordbia.ie/Pages/IGT-Home.aspx

Ø Irish Seed Savers Association, www.irishseedsavers.ie

Ø Agri Aware, www.agriaware.ie

Ø GAP, Ballymun, www.globalactionplan.ie

Ø Airfield Trust, www.airfield.ie

Ø Sonarite Ecology Centre www.sonairte.org

Ø Wicklow Education Centre, www.ecocentrewicklow.ie

Ø National Environmental Education Centre, www.knocksinkwood.org