SHOULD AGRICULTURE BE TAUGHT IN SCHOOL? A NEW SUBJECT TO GET BACK TO THE ROOTS

Yes, to talk about school when we are on a full summer vacation and when we don't even think about the early risers or the rush, it's risky. But we could talk about new possibilities and great ideas for the new course, for example Should agriculture be taught at school, as a new subject to return to the roots? Some people think so and maybe they are right.

There are more and more schools that have a small garden in which some students work and learn, at different times of the week and in different subjects, but there are those who think about taking another step, teaching how and what foods are through a subject like agriculture, a way to teach our school children to eat better and by extension to their own families.

Why not merge urban agriculture with primary education? Why not try to connect children with nature at this time when they are hyperconnected with technology?

Gradually schools are added that cease to consider having a garden and change it to have an orchard even a small greenhouse where they grow vegetables and herbs both aromatic and medicinal.

All are benefits

Urban gardens are becoming more frequent on terraces and small private gardens. In school it is even more interesting and obviously much more educational for all students because all schoolchildren they learn the benefits of growing their own food, while they are growing plants They are learning and they are educating.

From 3rd or 4th grade, it is the school children themselves who start working weekly in the garden. Shifts and labors are organized and you learn natural sciences, biology, values, ...

Even the food in the school canteen, the food that is discarded every day, is classified and organized to recycle whatever is valid to manufacture the composting itself with the help of worms and worms.

Half of the space that is used is for cultivation tables or for the garden itself, another part can be allocated to the moments in which the children have to be grouped, receiving the teacher's explanations about what they are going to see or do about the land.

Is about introduce agriculture as a cross-cutting subject, as a vehicle with which other subjects that are already included in the educational curriculum and some that should be introduced are treated such as ecology, the environment and healthy and balanced food to fight against the childhood obesity pandemic that is causing so much damage among schoolchildren around the world.

In Rome there is a whole team that is trying to develop innovative ways to get children to have more contact with nature. Researchers and designers who are working in the future of agriculture within the educational environment of our children, in their schools, so that they learn that milk does not leave the tetrabrick or the tomato from the supermarket line.