Vision

Grade 7 students envisioned educating younger students on the topic of climate change for a brighter future. They wanted to make them microgreen kits so they could learn how to plant their own food at home as well.

Action

Grade 7 students created a presentation on the topic of food miles and planting your own food as an alternative/solution to climate change. They presented this to a total of 110 grade 2 and 3 students at the elementary school nearby. They explained what food miles are and showed them a few grocery food items that were produced in areas such as Chile and Morocco to emphasize the distance they travelled before reaching our grocery stores. They also explained what climate change is and how we can stop climate change caused by food miles.

To introduce their solution, they listed foods that grow by season in Ontario and led an activity on seasonal food menus for farm to table restaurants. Then, they explained why plants are important to the planet, how they can help stop climate change and the benefits of growing your own food.

Finally, they showed them what microgreens are and listed 3 reasons why they’re awesome. At the end, they included a demo on how to grow them and they provided each student with a microgreen kit as a follow-up activity for them to do at home. The kits were assembled by the grade 7 students and they included a hemp mat, sweet greens seeds, instructions with a QR code that led to recipes, and a thank you card.
Even the packaging was eco-friendly and recyclable. They used paper bags for the kits, loose leaf tea bags for the seeds, and they even designed their own environmental themed stickers which we printed to close the kits.

Reflection & Celebration

This was a great success and we received many compliments on their Climate Action Project. The students were really engaged in doing something meaningful too!